


Side A: Kobrska and Hart

by frankiesin



Series: discontinued works [24]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Coming Out, Coming of Age, M/M, Origin Story, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2019-09-16 13:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16954740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: Harry Hart was a weird kid before he was a spy.Sofia Kobrska was just dangerous.(origin story/OC story set in the Kingsman universe)





	Side A: Kobrska and Hart

Chapter 1

 

The year was 1974. Harry Hart had just turned fourteen. He sat in the back seat of a town car as it drove through the cobblestone streets of Morocco, and took in the sights. This would be his home, at least for the next few months. His mother and father had both decided that it would suit him to attend this school for the next four years of his life. Harry didn't mind it too much; he didn't have very many friends to leave behind in London. Having a pair of secret agents for parents, coupled with being forced to take etiquette lessons for the past five years of his life, made him somewhat unfriendable to his peers. He got on well enough with the other Kingsman, but they weren't really his friends. They were just there so that he didn't feel so alone all the time.

 

Hopefully this school, a place Harry had never before heard of known as Outré Academy, would be different from his other scholastic experiences. Perhaps someone here would find him interesting, and not just strange.

 

The town car pulled up to a newer building, done up in an extravagant style that Harry cringed at. If this was where he would have to spend the next year of his life at, he'd rather be left alone in London, thank you. This place was so grand that it was gaudy.

 

"This is where we leave you, Harry darling." His mother, codenamed Galahad by the Kingsman, gave him a soft smile. Harry's father was off in Southeast Asia, doing something classified for the Kingsman. Harry was fine with that. He had always gotten along better with his mother, anyway.

 

"You can't even come in?" He asked. What kind of boarding school wouldn't even let its students' parents have a proper farewell? Though, this probably wasn't a normal boarding school. Most of the students that Harry saw were dragging used baggage, and dressed in mismatched clothes. To put it bluntly: everyone else looked very poor in comparison to Harry Hart and his mother in the town car. And Harry wondered why he had been considered for the school in the first place, or if his parents had placed him there themselves.

 

His mother shook her head in answer to his question, her short hair catching in the sun. "No, love. I will miss you though."

 

"I will miss you too." Harry said, and reached across the car to give her a hug. A proper hug, too, because it had to last. The Harts were not the most affectionate, even though two thirds of them were often off on life or death missions that lasted months. Harry didn't mind it that much. He liked his personal space. But this, leaving his mother, felt different. It felt like he was moving on to a new segment of his life, one where his family couldn't follow.

 

Harry got out of the car and made sure to get his bags before their driver could do it. He already looked out of place, dressed in a suit with his hair gelled and styled like the posh boy he was. He didn't need to further isolate himself by having someone else carry his things.

 

That was how Harry found himself dragging three oversized bags up seven flights of stairs, and secretly hating his mother for putting him in a suit. It was early September, which, in London, wasn't too hot for a suit, but this wasn't London. This was Morocco. Morocco was hot. Harry's bangs, formerly styled away from his face, we're now falling into his eyes. He considered stopping to take off the jacket at least, but that would just be another thing for him to figure out how to carry up the stairs and into the building.

 

Why oh why did this school have to be perched on top of a cliff over-looking the Mediterranean Sea?

 

"Need some help?" A voice called out from above him, and he looked up to see a girl with braids standing at the top of the stairs. She was dressed in a tank top and army pants, with winter boots. An odd combination, but Harry figured that it was a result of her upbringing. That might have been the best she could afford, for all he knew.

 

He also registered that her accent was distinctly Russian, despite her perfect English grammar. So this school, whatever it was, also catered to Soviets. Interesting.

 

"No thank you. I'm fine on my own." Harry called up to her, even though that was a blatant lie. It was obvious that he was in over his head and close to heat exhaustion. But he had been taught to not rely on anyone, especially not a woman, as it was his job as a gentleman to _be_ reliable to others.

 

"Don't pull any chauvinistic shit on me, pretty boy. I get enough of that back home." She was already coming down the stairs. Harry sighed, deciding that perhaps his father was wrong and asking for help from a woman wasn't the worst he could do. Besides, he could at least use this as an opportunity to try and make a friend. An acquaintance, if nothing more.

 

So he handed off one of his suitcases, as well as his suit jacket, which she took with a laugh and put it over her own shoulders. "The things they'll think... my name is Sofia, by the way. I'm from Russia."

 

"Harry Hart. London... er, England." He said, because he realised that people outside of England might not know of London, or what it meant to be from there. "Thank you, by the way."

 

"It's no problem." She threw over her shoulder. "Back in Russia, we have to carry fifty litres of water for miles just so we can get clean."

 

"You're joking." Harry assumed that she was joking. He knew that there were places around the world where such acts were normal, but he hadn't considered Russia to be one of them.

 

Sofia nodded. "I am joking. About my situation, that is. I know other girls who were lucky to get a bath. Some of them might be here, so watch what you say. You won't want to sound too rich, because most people will assume that you're an easy target. I can't protect you from everything... and I don't think you would want me too either."

 

"I can handle myself." Harry said. He meant it. Etiquette lessons weren't the only things he had learned during his days of lurking around the Kingsman base while he waited for one or both of his parents to return from a mission. The other Kingsman agents, Tristan and Percival in particular, were always willing to teach Harry some of their tricks. He supposed that it was because there hadn't been a lot of new recruits in the past five years, and the lack of newbies meant that the seasoned agents didn't have anyone to show off to. Even though the agents prided themselves on being gentlemen, they were still proud. They still had testosterone urging them to try and outdo their peers. Harry didn't mind. It meant that he got free fighting lessons, and would have an advantage over the other recruits when his time came and he was nominated for a position at the Kingsman table.

 

Harry and Sofia had made it into the building by then, and Harry looked around to see that it was as lavish on the inside as it had been on the outside. His lip curled up involuntarily.

 

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this kind of imperialistic decoration." Sofia said, expressing her own distaste for the lavish decor. "Could they make the classism any more obvious? There's no way this place has ever felt the hands of a real Moroccan."

 

"You seem to have some pretty strong opinions for a young lady." An older man said as he passed the pair. Harry could physically feel Sofia's anger at the man's comment. The man nodded to Harry. "Good for you, helping the lady with her things."

 

"Oh, these aren't hers." Harry said, putting on his most polite smile. He didn't mean the smile in any way. He also wasn't sure why he was rushing to Sofia's defense. He barely knew her, and besides, she had already proven that she was more than capable of taking care of herself. "Sofia's already unpacked her things. She came back out to help me, actually."

 

"Did she now?" Harry couldn't tell who the man was more annoyed with, Sofia the independent woman who was quickly tearing down his gender norms, or Harry Hart, who was handing Sofia a shovel to help her out.

 

The man returned Harry's polite but fake smile. "Well, all the better to her. I'm not surprised; Commies have always been the type to embrace radical ideas."

 

And then the man was off again, ignoring Sofia and Harry as though they had never been there in the first place. Harry hoped that, whoever that man was, he would never encounter him again. He didn't think he could keep his composure if that man insulted Sofia's abilities again. Harry had learned from his mother that gender was not an indicator of someone's worth. Rather, a person's worth was proved by their competence and how they treated people in need. Sofia had already proved her worth to Harry. That man had not.

 

" _Étot naglyj ublûdok. Kto on dumaet, čto on âvlâetsâ?_ " Sofia growled under her breath as she led Harry up the stairs to where he assumed the boys' rooms were. " _Â pokažu emu._ "

 

"Should I ask what you're saying, or is it better that I remain ignorant?" Harry asked her. "Also, it said on my acceptance letter that I would be in room two thousand and fifteen."

 

"Thank you, Harry. And, no, you probably don't want to know what I was saying. It wasn't anything nice." She said in response. She paused at a sign displaying directions and found Harry's room number before going off in the correct direction. Harry let her lead in silence, lost in his own thoughts. He had heard stories of his mother nearly compromising her missions because she wouldn't submit to the wills of the men around her. Being strong-willed was a necessary trait in a man, Harry had learned, but a bad one in a woman. He thought that the double standard was idiotic; either both genders should be expected to be strong, or neither. Until that happened, women like his mother and Sofia would be constrained. Constrained and unaccepted.

 

"Here we are." She dropped his bag in front of the door. "I'll go, before anyone else comes and sees me like this, all helpful and shit."

 

She started to walk away from him, anger radiating off of her in waves. But there was something else as well: sadness. Harry realised that, because of her inner strength, Sofia was probably just as alone in the world as he was. Harry couldn't just let their interaction end then. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be the Kingsman thing to do. And, even though Harry wasn't an official Kingsman yet, he still acted like one. It was all he knew.

 

"Wait," he called out after her. She slowed down. Harry started walking towards her. "Sofia, wait."

 

"What, Harry? Are you here to tell me not to think about what that man said? How I'm more than just a pretty face, or a piece of Communist scum in this western world?" She whirled on him, and he fully expected her to strike him. She didn't, because even though her words were full of violence, her body and her tone of voice were calm. Her light green eyes narrowed. "I cannot ignore that, Harry, because what that man said is the same thing my father says to me every morning before I leave. It is the same thing my teachers say to me. My worthlessness has been ingrained into me every day of my life for as long as I can remember,"

 

Harry opened his mouth to interrupt her (which was something he rarely did; rudeness was not encouraged at Kingsman) but she quickly slapped her palm across his face.

 

"And I have listened to what they consider my weaknesses. They say that, because of my gender, I will never be strong. So I trained harder than everyone in my class. I isolated myself to prove them all wrong. I disregarded communism as a religion--because that is what it is in my country--and instead considered it from a critical eye. There are parts I agree with, and other parts that I ignore." She paused and smiled at Harry, and he recognised that she was not someone to cross. He decided that, should he ever be assigned to take her out in the future, he would promptly quit Kingsman and go recreate himself somewhere else. It would be safer than trying to kill this girl.

 

"So, while I appreciate your sympathy, it is unnecessary. I know my weaknesses, and they are not what others think them to be." Her smile brightened. "My anger is only at their ignorance."

 

"Where it should be." Harry said. He stuck out his hand for her to shake, and she took it tentatively. They shook, and Harry dropped his hand back to his side. "I hope to see you around, Sofia. You're an interesting person."

 

"I feel the same about you, _simpatičnyj mal'čik_." She winked at him. Harry raised an eyebrow at her Russian. "What did you just call me?"

 

"Pretty boy." She said it in a way that was not at all flirtatious, but teasing. Friendly teasing. And then she was gone, down the hallway and out of Harry's line of sight. So he went back to the abandoned bags outside of his new dorm room, and brought them in. His roommate had already situated himself on the bed on the right side of the room, leaving Harry to take one of the two bunks on the left. He chose the lower one, because he knew that the third roommate would probably prefer taking the top bunk. Most boys did, because somehow, being on the top bunk signified dominance. Harry just thought it signified immaturity, a  "I'm taller than you na-na-na-na!" kind of thing.

 

He unpacked his clothes into the drawers with his name printed on them, and it wasn't until after dinner, when his two roommates were getting acquainted with each other (and ignoring Harry completely, because apparently manners were not an international feat), that Harry realised that Sofia had gotten away with his jacket.

 

His first instinct was to track her down and get it back, but then he realised that he didn't know where her room was. So he sighed and pulled out one of the many books he had packed. If his roommates weren't going to include him in their conversation, then he wouldn't continue trying to include himself in it. Besides, their topic of conversation wasn't very relatable. Harry had never stolen a car in his life, let alone the car of a governor.

 

Though, the way the two boys were talking about it made the event seem very fun. Perhaps he'd try it one day.

 

* * *

  


Chapter 2

 

"What the shit!? There's a fucking girl in here!!" One of Harry's roommates, the one from India, screamed out as the lights all suddenly came on. Harry jerked up into a seated position and saw that his other roommate, the one from Finland, and pulled his sheets up to his neck and was blushing a deep scarlet. And, situated nicely on the edge of Harry's mattress, was none other than Sofia. She was watching the boys' reactions with obvious amusement.

 

Her hair was already done up in braids, and she was wearing army pants and a tank top again. She was not wearing the same tank top, as this one was black and a size too large. The left strap was falling off of her shoulder. The fabric of her bra strap was visible, so Harry reached out and fixed her shirt without really even thinking. Sofia watched him with a smile on her face. "Thank you, Harry Hart."

 

"You're welcome." He said, still not sure why she was in his room. He decided it best to just ask her. "Why are you here?"

 

"Breakfast starts in five minutes. Judging by how many people are here, you'll want to be down there when they open up the lines." She said. "I already pulled out some clothes for you. And don't worry; they're much more appropriate than your suit from yesterday."

 

"Thank you." He said, and got out of bed. There was no way for him to get ready in five minutes. His hair was probably a mess, because he had taken a shower the night before and slept on it wet, not wanting to dry it and face the inevitable teasing from his roommates. Harry's hair, when not aggressively styled into something proper, was very curly, and very unruly. And he didn't like it at all. It didn't look proper. It didn't look like a Kingman, and that was what Harry strove for with his every decision.

 

He grabbed his clothes and saw that they contained a white polo and a pair of dark pants. Sofia had also grabbed him a pair of socks and underwear (which was only slightly embarrassing, and he would have to talk to her about that later), and a pair of shoes. He turned towards Sofia. "You should leave now. I am about to change."

 

"It's fine." She was still smiling. "Besides, I get enjoyment out of making boys uncomfortable."

 

"Of course you do." Harry said, and removed his shirt. He wasn't pale and thin like the others probably expected him to be, but he wasn't ridiculously built. He was just a fourteen year old boy, after all.

 

So that was how he found himself getting naked in front of a girl for the first time. His other roommates seemed amused enough, and promptly stripped to nothing in front of Sofia as well. Sofia watched them with a blank expression on her face, as if their peacocking was a bore to her. In fact, when the Finnish boy strode past her, proudly displaying his fluffy crotch, Sofia just raised an eyebrow and looked over at Harry. He was, by this point, fully dressed and searching through his bags for his hair products. She didn't give him a chance to find him.

 

That morning, Harry Hart learned how to swear in both Finnish and Hindi, as Sofia threw open the door to Harry's dorm room and called over her shoulder, "come along, Harry Hart. Breakfast awaits," as Harry's two roommates displayed both their native vocabulary and their genitals to the hallway.

 

Needless to say, Harry got the hell out of his room and was practically dragging Sofia away from the screaming boys. His face was very warm. She was cracking up, struggling to breathe through her laughter. Harry didn't slow down or make eye contact with her until they were inside the cafeteria and in line behind a group of South American girls. Then he turned around and hissed, "what the hell was that?!"

 

"Comedy gold, as you would say." She said in between bursts of laughter.

 

"I would never say that." Harry shook his head.

 

"Well, it's an English saying, and you're English. Pardon me for making an assumption." Her laughter died off. Harry pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking. Now that he was far enough away from the scene of the crime, he was starting to understand the humour behind Sofia's actions. He broke out into a smile and opened his eyes. "It _was_ rather amusing, seeing their egos fall so quickly when you opened the door."

 

"Yes." Sofia nodded. "They were definitely flaunting themselves."

 

"I like to call it peacocking."

 

Sofia's eyebrows furrowed and she tilted her head in a way that made Harry forget how dangerous Sofia really was. "Peacocking?"

 

"Male peacocks have very colourful tails that they whip out whenever they are trying to attract a female. Much like what my roommates attempted this morning." Harry explained, the smile still on his face. It had only been a few hours, and he had already smiled at this school more than he had in his past two school years combined. That boded well for his time here.

 

Sofia nodded in understanding. "Peacocking. I think I will use that term. I like it."

 

They moved forward in the line, to the point that they could actually reach some of the food. Sofia's eyes scanned over the various breakfast materials, taking them all in at once. She looked surprised.

 

"Have you never seen scrambled eggs before?" Harry asked, because the eggs seemed to have gotten Sofia's attention the most.

 

"I've never seen so much at once." She whispered. Harry remembered that Sofia came from Russia, a Communist state. She didn't have unlimited food. She just had what the government said was enough. Harry was reminded again of just how much privilege he had. He never had to worry about how many eggs he would have, they were just there.

 

"You can have as many as you'd like." He said. She looked away from the eggs, uncertain. "Are you sure?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Are they going to be serving us any other meals?"

 

"I don't see why they wouldn't."

 

"Oh. Alright." And so Sofia took a spoonful of eggs and piled them on her plate. She also took a single strip of bacon and a croissant. Harry just had eggs and toast, which Sofia watched him place in the toaster and stood with him while it toasted. Harry stole a glance at her while his toast was toasting and smirked, amused at her astonishment. "Haven't seen a toaster either, then, have you?"

 

"No, I have. I'm just waiting for you to finish so that we can go sit down." Sofia said. Harry paused, wondering if his comment had been taken the wrong way. Sofia did her head tilt thing again. "Did you really think I'd never seen a toaster before? Harry, I'm Russian, but I'm not poor. I know what a toaster is. I know how to kill someone with a toaster."

 

"So do I." Harry said without really thinking about it. As soon as he registered what he had just said, though, he looked up worriedly at Sofia. "I didn't say that."

 

"You did, but don't worry, I said it first." She blinked, watching his face as intently as he was watching hers. They had both accidentally bared themselves to each other, neither one sure of how to react. Sofia moved first. "I guess we both have dark pasts then. Perhaps, some time in the future, we could share them?"

 

"Well, that's what friends do, right? They share secrets." Harry said. His toast popped out of the toaster and he and Sofia headed over to a table near the door. They sat down across from each other and began to eat. Harry was contemplating getting a cup of tea (and whether Sofia would judge him for being so obviously British) when a group of guys made their way over to him and Sofia. They surrounded them, but neither Sofia nor Harry reacted. They were outnumbered, sure, but they weren't at all outmatched.

 

The boy to Harry's right leaned in, completely invading Harry's personal space. Harry ignored him and took a bite of toast. The toast was promptly ripped out of his hands and hurled on the ground. The boy grabbed Harry's jaw and jerked his head around so that Harry was forced to make eye contact with him. "I've been hearin' that you've got yourself a nice pile of _Geld_ back in your room. I suggest you start sharing, 'less you wanna end up like your roomies."

 

"Leave him alone." Sofia said, her voice as calm as usual. Harry realised that was her warning. Sofia was not a calm person unless she was pissed. And then nothing could get her emotional. She was in complete control.

 

The boy let go of Harry and gave Sofia his attention, combing his eyes over her. "You're a pretty thing, aren't you, _Mädchen_? How much does the kraut pay you to stick around? Hundred an hour? Two hundred?"

 

"I don't pay her." Harry said, irritated.

 

The boy ignored him. "Do you at least put out? Because I bet you give the best hea--"

 

Harry's fist was in the other guys face before he even registered what he was doing. Insinuating that Harry paid Sofia to be his friend was bad enough, but implying that she was some kind of sex toy? Harry wouldn't stand for it. He hadn't had many friends, but he knew that he wouldn't let assholes like this boy hurt any friends he made.

 

The boy stood up, a bruise already appearing on his cheekbone. He was taller than Harry, but Harry didn't care. He could handle his own in a fight. He stood up as well, a cold rage settling over his body. He glared at the boy. "If you want to pick a fight with me, then do it to my face. My friends are off limits, _verstehen_?"

 

Harry knew some German, enough to know that this kid was from the country. Enough to know how to insult him, if necessary. At this point, Harry would rather just bash the boy's face in and be done with it.

 

"Hart. Van Haussen." A crisp voice shouted from across the cafeteria, and everyone turned to see a dark-skinned woman in a suit striding across the floor. She looked angry and disappointed in the scene in front of her. Harry slowly lowered his fists, but he stood his ground regardless. Perhaps, being a woman herself, she would understand Harry's actions better.

 

She looked at the two boys. "I am very disappointed in both of you. Your first day, and already starting to fight. Could you at least wait until we sorted you?"

 

"Sorted us?" The German asked. "Ma'am."

 

"You heard me, Van Haussen. Now take your friends and leave Hart and Kobrska alone." Her expression was fierce enough to send the whole lot of them scattering away. Once they were gone, she turned to Sofia and Harry. She tutted and shook her head. "Harry Hart. I had heard such good things about you from your father. I'm so sorry that you aren't who he said you would be."

 

"Ma'am, I can explain..." Harry started, but even as the words were leaving his mouth, he knew they were useless. This woman, whoever she was, had a lot of influence in this school. And Harry had already made it onto her bad side.

 

"There is no need for an explanation, Hart." She clipped. "I will make my final assessment of you this afternoon, when I see who you really are. Do not disappoint me again. I would hate to have to... _expel_ you."

 

From the way she said "expel," Harry knew that getting kicked out of the school was the least of his worries. He watched her walk away before he slunk back down into his chair, keeping his head down to hide how his cheeks were burning again. He needed to get past his own nerves if he ever wanted to be a Kingsman agent like his parents. He needed to be able to pull off a stunt and not regret it immediately afterwards.

 

"I'm going to assume that you have never been scolded by a teacher before." Sofia said, and munched on her croissant. Her eggs were already gone.

 

Harry nodded solemnly. "Does it get any less embarrassing?"

 

"I don't know. I've never been scolded before, at least, not for starting a fight." She said, around her croissant. "Actually, I don't think I've ever been in a fight. I got along well with the girls at my old school."

 

"Well, good for you." Harry said, with a slight edge to his voice. Sofia only smiled, like she knew that he wasn't really angry. He ran a hand through his hair, only just remembering that he hadn't styled it yet. His eyes widened in horror. "Shite. Sofia, I need to fix my hair."

 

"No you don't." She said.

 

"Yes I do." He argued back, starting to stand up. "It's a right mess... I can't do the sorting--whatever that is--looking like this. Come on."

 

"Harry, you are the most high-maintenance person I have ever met." Sofia said, but followed him anyway. They had only just left the cafeteria when a voice came over the intercom and announced that all first year students were to report to the gymnasium immediately for sorting. Harry stilled. He couldn't face everyone looking the way he did, with his hair a mess and dressed in such casual attire. But he couldn't be late for the sorting either. He couldn't disappoint the woman from earlier. He looked to Sofia, panic clear in his eyes. "Do you think I can...?"

 

"You look fine, _simpatičnyj mal'čik_." She sighed, and grabbed him by his arm, dragging him off to the gymnasium. Harry supposed that he was being a little ridiculous, but he wanted to make a good first impression. He couldn't do that when he looked like he had just rolled out of bed and grabbed the first things he could get his hands on.

 

They made it to the gymnasium on time, getting settled into their seats with minutes to spare. The dark-skinned woman from before walked across to where a podium was situated in the middle of what looked to be a boxing ring, and the students fell silent immediately. The woman gave them all a pleasant smile, and positioned the microphone where she wanted it. "Good morning, class of 1978. My name is Adele Al'Dominique, and I am your headmistress at Outré Academy. Today will begin your sorting process, to assess your skills, and which team you will be training with for the next four years of your life. We will be starting with a simple fighting match today, with partners picked at random. For the sake of any friendships you may be starting, do try and avoid going up against a friend."

 

She paused, letting the students chatter for a few moments. "Please line up, with thirty five people on the left, and thirty five on the right."

 

She stepped away from the podium, and the students began  trying to split themselves perfectly in half. It went as well as one would expect with seventy teenagers trying to direct one another. Sofia just wrapped her hands around Harry's arm and stuck beside him. She whispered into his ear, "Trust me, you don't want to go against me in a fight. I'm lethal, and I really don't want to kill you. No matter what happens, we need to stay on the same side."

 

"I already decided that would be our motto, and not just for this fight." Harry whispered back. "It can stay for the duration of our friendship."

 

"Well, considering my father's profession, that might be difficult." Sofia said. Harry wanted to ask just what her father's profession was, but the headmistress came back on stage and tapped the microphone. She smiled at the students in chaos. "I wasn't expecting you all to figure it out, so I will tell you how to sort yourselves. If your last name comes before, or is, Laffitte, go to the right side of the ring. If your last name comes after Laffitte, go to the left."

 

And then the chaos subsided as the seventy students organised themselves into their appropriate lines. Harry stood behind Sofia near the front of the line, and he could see Van Haussen on the other side. Harry narrows his eyes and said to Sofia, "I hope one of us gets to take him out."

 

" _Â čuvstuû sebâ takim že obrazom_." Sofia said. And then, in English, "I feel the same way."

 

* * *

  


Chapter 3

 

Sofia ended up with Van Haussen as her opponent. She and Harry exchanged a grin before Sofia jumped into the ring. The point of these fights was to take out the opposition as quickly and effectively as possible. Harry knew how to do that; he just wished he could do it to Van Haussen. Harry was very good at the knock out move, so good, in fact, that he was able to do it as flamboyantly and as ridiculously as he wanted. It would have been fun to see Van Haussen's face when Harry knocked him flat on his arse. In front of everyone else.

 

But seeing Sofia kick his arse would be even better, because she was a girl and Van Haussen was as misogynistic as they came.

 

Van Haussen bounced on his toes, a crooked grin on his face as he looked Sofia over. "Pretty girl, I don't wanna hit you. But I'm not about to lose either."

 

"That's reasonable." Sofia said. She watched Van Haussen as he moved, but she made no visible movements of her own. She did shift her position as Can Haussen strode back and forth in his corner of the ring. She looked bored, but Harry could see her for what she really was: an animal waiting for the right moment to strike. He would compare her to some kind of feline, but that seemed too cliche. Also, Sofia seemed much more dangerous than the average jungle cat. Harry meant it when he said he wanted to be on her side. Choosing anything else, it seemed to him, would certainly end in his untimely death.

 

Without much warning, Van Haussen moved. He came at Sofia with what would have been a solid punch to her neck, but she kicked him in the neck with the toe of her boot, and he stumbled to the ground. And then Sofia was on top of him, with one foot in the air, over his face. Her foot came down on his skull, and there was an audible crunch as Van Haussen's face broke under the force of Sofia Kobrska. There was blood and brain matter under her foot, and Harry knew that Van Haussen wasn't getting back up from that. He was dead.

 

Harry had seen dead people before, but he had never seen anyone actually die. This was new. Somewhat frightening, really, to see a life literally get stomped out by another. The silence in the room only made it worse. Everyone was staring at Sofia now. She knew it, because she was starting to lose her easy composure and she was looking around, green eyes flickering from face to face. She settled on Harry's. "What did I do? I thought I was supposed to take him out as effectively as possible."

 

"I don't think you were meant to kill him." Harry's voice was quiet, oh so quiet, nearly swallowed by the silence. There was a dead boy on the floor. There was a girl standing over him with one boot coated in blood. There was a boy with fluffy hair on the other side of the arena, wondering when the chaos would take over and drown his friend. Because it didn't matter who you were. When a person witnessed something that macabre, they wouldn't stay silent forever. Their thoughts would catch up eventually, and when they did, Sofia would suffer.

 

Harry wasn't going to let her suffer alone. He stepped up and ducked into the ring, walking to where Sofia stood beside Van Haussen's body. He extended his hand to her as he approached. "Come on, Sofia, let's get you cleaned up."

 

"Step away, Mr. Hart." The headmistress was at the edge of the ring. Harry held onto Sofia's hand as he turned to face her. She looked as she usually did. "Step off the ring. I will be taking Kobrska to a different location to finish her sorting. Your fight is next, Hart, so you might want to get ready."

 

Harry didn't want to leave Sofia to whatever punishment headmistress Al'Dominique was going to give her, but he didn't have another option. So he let go of his friend and they went their separate ways. Sofia did not bow her head in shame as she left the ring, but it was obvious that she didn't feel any pride in her actions. Harry just figured that killing was natural for her. She was Russian. Russian training, as far as Harry knew, was a lot more brutal than anything else in the world.

 

Harry went back to his spot at the front of the line and watched as a crew removed Van Haussen's body and cleaned up his blood and his brains from the floor. Harry hoped that he wouldn't die from a headshot; they seemed very painful and quite disgusting. Not that murder was ever pleasant, but still. Getting shot in the head, or kicked in the head, seemed a shite way to go.

 

It took twenty three minutes from the time Sofia left the room for the ring to be cleared for Harry and his opponent to fight. His opponent was a boy of Asian descent, who moved with a lithe grace that Harry envied. That didn't stop Harry from taking the other boy out in under four minutes, which wasn't the quickest time, but it was a pretty good performance, considering that his mind was elsewhere. He simply just wasn't interested in the fight, not when his first real friend was probably being thrown out of Outré Academy behind his back. What kind of friend was Harry if he couldn't help Sofia when she actually needed his support?

 

As soon as Harry's opponent hit the floor with a solid thump, Harry was out of the room. No one tried to stop him. They all seemed to know where he was headed, and they all seemed to realise that stopping him was not a feasible option.

 

Harry didn't have a goal in mind, he just ran. He thought about what he knew about the Kingsman manour in the English countryside. There were places to hide hostiles there, most of them below ground so that the hostile couldn't get a good idea of their surroundings. If this place was anything like Kingsman, and Harry was beginning to think that it was, then the holding cells would be below ground. Which meant that he needed some stairs. He found them and went down, not pausing to catch his breath, even though he was sure he would need to do so eventually. He was fit enough, but running blindly through the entirety of a mansion could tire anyone out, no matter how fit they were.

 

He finally saw her, on the other side of a glass wall. The wall was probably bulletproof. Harry skidded to a stop in front of the window, and banged his fist on the glass. Sofia looked up at him, surprise on her face. "Harry? What are you doing here?"

 

"I'm going to get you out." Harry said.

 

"And how do you plan to do that, Hart?" As if on cue, the headmistress appeared from the shadows to stand behind Harry. She placed a hand on his shoulder and he tensed up in response. He looked at her face through the reflection in the mirror, and saw that she had a small smile on her face. Of course she saw the futility of his actions amusing. "I admire your loyalty, Hart, but your actions are too brash. If you want to reach your full potential, then you need to think through your decisions before you make them. Saving a friend is important, but don't trap yourself in the process."

 

"You can't kick her out." Harry said. "Your instructions never said that killing the opponent wasn't an option. You just said to take them out effectively."

 

"I am well aware of what I said." Al'Dominique said, her voice returning to its usual coldness. "I am not going to punish Kobrska for her actions, but I thought it best to remove her from the area. People don't react logically when faced with violence, especially people who are not accustomed to it being committed so fluidly."

 

"How long are you keeping her here?" Harry asked with his sight focused on Sofia. She could hear them, but she showed no fear. Harry figured that Al'Dominique had explained everything to Sofia already, before Harry had run to her side.

 

"Until the sorting is over." The headmistress said, and took her hand off of Harry's shoulder. She stood behind him still, and he could feel the intensity of her gaze on the back of his head. It was unsettling, but Harry didn't show any discomfort, instead waiting for Al'Dominique to continue speaking. Because he knew that she wasn't quite finished with her explanation. "I was originally going to assign you two to different groups, since you both have some experience with working for an organisation under your belts, but after what I saw today, I decided against it. You two complement each other, more than some partners are ever able to even after years of working together."

 

"Thank you, headmistress." Sofia said from the other side of the glass. She sent Harry a wink. "Guess that means you're stuck with me. How does it feel, _simpatičnyj mal'čik_ , to be paired with a killer?"

 

"No different than usual." Harry said back, and he meant it. Yes, Sofia had just killed someone, in front of an audience, but that didn't make her less of a person in Harry's eyes. Most of the people he knew had killed someone at least once in their lives. Sofia wa just a continuation of the norm.

 

Harry sat with Sofia until Al'Dominique returned and said that it was safe for Sofia to leave. The headmistress had warned Harry and Sofia that they would probably face a lot of discrimination from theirs peers, but the pair only looked at each other and shrugged. _No different than usual._ They weren't used to being popular amongst students anyway. Harry certainly wasn't, and judging by how flippant Sofia was about the whole escapade, she wasn't either. Harry wanted to know why, but he wasn't rude enough to force the information out of her. If Sofia wanted to talk, she would talk.

 

Harry and Sofia walked out of the basement together, their feet hitting the ground in stride. Sofia on the left, and Harry on the right. They were greeted with stares, nothing but stares. No one said anything to them, but they said everything about them. Harry caught the word "psychopath" a few times, and he figured that the non-English speakers were murmuring their version of the word as well. Harry just stepped slightly in front of Sofia, a silent warning that if they wanted to attack her, they would have to bypass him as well. Everyone had seen Harry's fight. They knew he was good. They also knew that he wasn't scared of Sofia.

 

He spent the rest of the day silently warding off the other students and staying right beside Sofia. There were other tests: agility, intelligence, ingenuity, balance, endurance. Harry made sure that he was with Sofia for all of them. He was pretty sure that Al'Dominique was allowing it.

 

The day finally came to an end, and Sofia and Harry had to go their separate ways. Sofia went down to her room, and Harry went up the stairs to his. His Finnish roommate was already there, in his bed across the room from Harry's bottom bunk. He watched silently as Harry moved about, getting ready for the night. Harry knew he was being watched, but he didn't change his routine. He wasn't about to let the other boy unsettle him. Harry Hart didn't get unsettled by random Finnish boys across the room.

 

"You have a thing for crazy girls, then?" The boy finally asked, right as Harry was taking off his trousers. Harry paused, trousers down to his knees. He dropped them completely and continued with getting undressed. "I'm not interested in dating Sofia, if that's what you're implying."

 

"Then why the fuck were you hanging around her all day?" The Finn exclaimed, sounding offended. "You could've just sat with me and Raju, but for some reason you chose the crazy bitch?"

 

Harry resisted the urge to throw his shoe at the boy's head for saying such a thing about Sofia. "Don't call her that."

 

"It's true."

 

"It's not." Harry rebuked, and put on his pajama pants. "She's from Russia, and she's been trained to kill people. It is not her fault that she didn't know murder was unacceptable here."

 

" _Hyvin paska_ , I didn't know that." The Finnish boy flopped back into his bed. If Harry was going to actually have conversations with this boy, then he ought to learn his name. Now was not the time to ask it, as he was in the middle of explaining Sofia's actions. He would ask for the boy's name later.

 

"She's not a bad person, she just doesn't have the same set of morals as you or I." Harry explained. He realised that he was pulling some of this information out of thin air, but it was better than nothing. Perhaps, if he could get the Finnish boy to understand, Sofia would be able to get another ally on her side. She needed some of those. Harry couldn't do everything to defend her (not that she really needed his help; she could handle herself just fine), but he could at least stop people from talking about her behind her back.

 

The Finnish boy shrugged. "Alright, if you say so. But if I were you, I'd keep some distance. If she is who I think she is... then being her friend isn't a good idea."

 

"I'm not worried." Harry said. And he wasn't. He probably should have been, but his time around the Kingsman had taught him that fear was only valuable when it was right. Until Sofia started acting like a threat, Harry wasn't going to treat her like a threat.

 

"Then when her father finds out about you, I hope you know how to run." The Finnish boy said. Harry's face must have betrayed some of his surprise, because the Finnish boy leaned forward in his bed and folded his hands in his lap. His face took on a very serious expression. "I don't know a lot about Russia, but I know that there's a man in Russia named Sergei Kobrsk who scares even Brezhnev's best agents. Your friend's last name is Kobrska, the girl version of Kobrsk. So either she's related to him, or it's one hell of a coincidence. And if I were you, I'd believe the former. It might keep you alive longer."

 

"If Kobrsk is her father, I understand why she wouldn't want us to know." Harry said. He had actually heard the name of Sergei Kobrsk before--Percival had mentioned it in passing a few years ago, and had promptly been shushed by Harry's father. Harry would have to ask Percival about Sergei when he next saw the man, for reasons other than Sofia. If Harry was to become an agent, Kingsman or otherwise, then he needed to know about people like Sergei Kobrsk. He messed with his hair, still not sure why Sofia had suggested that he not deal with it. "I'll ask her about it tomorrow, if you'd like me to."

 

"Don't say I wanted to know, because I don't." Harry's roommate said quickly. "If you're friends with the daughter of Sergei Kobrsk, I don't want to get involved. I actually like living."

 

"As do I." Harry said. But he knew that knowledge was power. The more he knew about Sergei Kobrsk and any possible relation he had to Sofia, the more he would be able to understand Sofia's background. If Harry was going to be her friend, he needed to know about her. She would also need to know about him, but that wouldn't be too big of an issue. Harry's parents were just spies, not internationally feared Russian men.

 

* * *

  


Chapter 4

 

Harry and Sofia were assigned to a team of six the next day. Harry's Finnish roommate, named Sven, was one of them, as well as a girl from Thailand, a boy from Columbia, and two boys from the United States. They were assigned to a training room and a teacher, who instructed them on how to hone their skills. None of them were perfect, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but by the time the semester came to an end, they were all at a basic level of understanding for every ability they might need for their lives as spies.

 

Sven and Harry got along well, even more so after Sven got over his fear of Sofia and her relation to Sergei Kobrsk. Sofia had actually sat the team down one morning and explained her feelings for her father. None of them were very loving.

 

Apparently Sofia's father was abusive towards Sofia and her younger sister, to the point that Sofia had refused to attend Outré Academy unless one of the Outré agents stayed behind to make sure that Sergei never laid a hand on Sofia's sister. So while Sofia was at Outré Academy learning the finer points of espionage, a fully trained agent was in a cabin in Siberia, watching over a seven year old girl. Harry was pretty sure that Sofia was more of a danger than the agent, and when he told that to Sven one night after they had finished their day of training and had turned in for the night, Sven agreed.

 

Harry rather liked Sven, which worried him ever so slightly. The problem was this: when around Sven, a good friend, but nowhere near the level of Sofia Kobrska in terms of companionship, Harry often found himself smiling and ducking his head, and his heart rate would speed up sometimes. That never happened around Sofia, which made no sense. Sofia was a pretty girl underneath her child-like braided pigtails and ill-fitted attire, but Harry felt no real attraction towards her. He wanted to, though. If he was to develop feelings for a member of his team, he hoped that they would be for Sofia. Sofia was brave, cunning, lethal. Someone Harry enjoyed being around. His parents would surely approve, despite her rough background. Everyone else would definitely approve. She was, after all, a girl. What more was Harry supposed to be looking for?

 

He had to do something, before anyone else noticed that he spent more time watching Sven than Sofia. So one night, near the end of the semester, Harry snuck out of his room and headed towards Sofia's. By now he knew where her room was, as he had gone over there with her on occasion. They had never done anything outside of the ordinary, and Sofia's roommates were never around when she was (which angered Harry, but he never said anything about it because it wasn't his place). Sofia's dorm room was just another location for Harry and Sofia to interact with each other. It held no significant value.

 

Harry stood outside the door for a long time, his nerves getting the better of him at last. He had to do it, though. He had to ask Sofia to be his girlfriend. It felt as though everyone else around them was expecting it to happen already. Harry raised his fist to the door, about to knock, when it opened in on itself and he found himself face to face with his best friend. She blinked rapidly and let out a yawn. Her hair was down, loose around her shoulders. She was wearing a man's t-shirt and a pair of shorts. She squinted at Harry in the dim lighting of the hall. "Harry? What are you doing here?"

 

"Coming to find you." He breathed out. "There's something I needed to ask you."

 

"At two in the morning? _Garri, vy poterâli vaš razum_?" She whispered. She didn't sound annoyed at all, which Harry considered to be a good thing. After all, she was the one who usually showed up at his dorm at odd hours of the night.

 

"It's important." Harry tried to rationalise his action, but he knew that he really couldn't. He was just trying to do what he thought was right, and that meant asking Sofia to be his girlfriend at two in the morning on a day in mid-December. This was what Harry's life had come to over the past four months, apparently. Going home was going to be interesting, to say the least.

 

Sofia let out a sigh and tipped her head forward, so that Harry was staring at the part down the middle of her head. "Well, if you must. What's bothering you?"

 

"I was wondering if you would like to go on a date with me?" Harry said. Sofia's head shot up so fast that she nearly bumped Harry in the nose. "What?"

 

"Do you want to be my girlfriend?" Harry asked again, this time with a lot more certainty in his voice. He ruffled with his hair, a nervous habit he had picked up during the past four months of being away from his parents and the Kingsman. He would have to unlearn that when he went home over the break, as he would be expected to have his hair combed and styled in a proper manner, and not have it running wild atop his head the way it was now.

 

But it was not the time to be thinking about his hair and what he should or should have been doing with it. Sofia was staring at him, trying to decide if he was being serious or not. Harry didn't know if he was being serious or not. It was two in the morning. He was afraid of the thoughts lurking in the corners of his mind. He was acting on impulse, and a tired impulse at that.

 

"I have no problem dating you, but Harry?" She gave him her most unimpressed look.

 

"Yes?"

 

"The next time you ask a girl out on a date, please be considerate enough to do it at a normal time of day." She said. "Besides, I thought you were supposed to be a suave little gentleman spy in training. This isn't very suave, _simpatičnyj mal'čik_. This actually reads as desperate."

 

"Pretend that I was lying awake all night thinking of how much I liked you and wanted to be your boyfriend." Harry said, a smile on his face. Sofia laughed, because she, like Harry, was well aware that that wasn't the case. Harry, like most other boys, peacocked when trying to impress someone. Harry's peacocking was strictly in the training arena, though. He had a tendency to show off when fighting, and Sofia found it amusing.

 

She also found this two in the morning excursion amusing as well. "You are very romantic, Harry. I'm a very lucky girl."

 

"You could say that." Harry said. They stood in Sofia's doorway for a few more moments, neither one quite sure what to do next. Harry wasn't about to kiss her, not just yet, but he wasn't sure if he should stay or if he should say goodnight and return back to his room. He wasn't very experienced with dating procedures, which was understandable considering that he was only fourteen and hadn't had many friends up until this year. He had never had the chance to date anyone until now.

 

"Well, I'm tired, you are also probably tired, so unless you have a spontaneous date to take me on, I suggest we go back to bed." Thankfully Sofia wasn't as awkward as Harry. He took her up on her suggestion, giving her a quick hug before he returned to his room. Her breasts, which weren't hidden behind a bra, felt strangely soft against his chest. He wondered if he would get used to that feeling, or if he would have to ask any future partners to keep their bras on so that he wouldn't have to feel the awkwardness of their breasts.

 

Harry didn't know why he was thinking about something like that. He had only just gotten a girlfriend. Sex was a long way off for him. Hopefully. Harry wouldn't know what to do if he tried to have sex with a girl. There wasn't an instruction booklet on how to do it either. It was all very closeted, secretive, even though the other boys on Harry's hall often talked about breasts and sex like they were common occurrences. Maybe they were, and Harry was the odd one and taking too long to get a girlfriend. It wouldn't surprise him. The other boys had already made friends before they were adopted into Outré Academy. They had probably also had girlfriends before they came here.

 

Harry's musings lasted him all the way back to his dorm room, where he let himself back in as quietly as possible. He didn't want to wake Raju or Sven. He crawled into his bed again and rolled over so that he was facing the wall. Harry closed his eyes, and fell asleep, dreaming of absolutely nothing. He was just tired, a result of the constant training and the late night excursions with Sofia. Tonight hadn't been the first time that Harry and Sofia had met after lights out, though they usually planned it beforehand, and they usually snuck out somewhere off campus.

 

Harry was the one who would decide the location, and Sofia would come get him when the coast was clear and the adult agents had already gone to bed. Despite it being a much larger facility than Kingsman, Outré Academy's security was rather lacking. Not that Harry was complaining. He rather enjoyed the thrill of sneaking out, now that he had someone to do it with and nowhere to go once he had gotten out.

 

Harry woke up the next morning to a siren going off and Sven yelling for Harry and Raju to get the hell up. Harry got out of bed and grabbed a pair of shoes, figuring that they would be helpful in whatever was coming, and moved towards the door. "Sven, what happened?"

 

"Someone broke in." Sven said. Raju was awake as well, and gathering as many weapons as he could, rationing them out amongst his roommates. Sven grabbed a knife from Raju and tucked it into his belt. "They're running around and trying to kill us all. We're supposed to report to bunker one until we get cleared."

 

"How the hell do you know that?" Raju asked.

 

"I told him." Sofia Kobrska, of course, was standing in the corner and not making a big deal of herself. "Unlike you guys, I wake up when I'm supposed to. I heard the adults calling us down, and decided to get to my friends first."

 

"I appreciate that, but I'm not going to hide in a bunker." Harry said, checking his gun to make sure it was loaded. Raju and Sven looked at him like he had lost his mind, but Sofia was grinning from ear to ear. She pulled back her jacket (actually, it was Harry's from the first day of school) to show that she was loaded to the nines with every type of weapon imaginable. Harry could only imagine what else she had on her. Sofia let the suit jacket flutter shut. "I had a feeling that you would say that, _simpatičnyj mal'čik_. Where do you want to start?"

 

"Wherever the intruders are." Harry said.

 

"Are you two really going to go after the intruders on your own?" Sven asked. Harry and Sofia nodded their heads. Sven shook his. "You two are something else. Just, be careful. You two may be crazy, but you're also very good agents. I don't want to lose you."

 

"You won't." Harry promised, because he knew what he was doing. And he was on his way to being an agent, Kingsman, Outré, or otherwise, and that meant that he couldn't just sit back and let people risk their lives. Harry was reckless, sure, but he wasn't stupid enough to go into a situation blind, or without a backup.

 

He grabbed Sofia and they ran, weapons at the ready. They made it down the stairs before they encountered their first opposition, a pair of black-clad men with machine guns and cold expressions. Sofia shot one in the back of the head and Harry, always the show-off, jumped over the railing and impaled the second in the back. He let go of the knife, expecting his target to fall over, and had to backflip the hell away when his target, knife in back, turned around and started shooting at him.

 

"Pull the knife out, you _bezrassudnyj čelovek_!" Sofia yelled as she ran across the room, shooting at the second assailant. A third came from behind her, and Harry shot him between the eyes before he could attack Sofia. Harry twisted himself up off the floor and shot at the second assailant, who was still trying to pin down either Harry or Sofia. "I forgot, okay?"

 

Sofia insulted him in Russian and ran around to the assailant's back. The man followed her motions instead of Harry, so Harry took his opportunity. He reached out, removed the knife from the man's back, and then stabbed him again in the neck. Harry removed the knife a second time and the man fell to the floor. Harry wiped the blood off of his knife and put it back. He looked up at Sofia. "I know how to stab people, Sofia. I've just never had the chance to practice on an actual human."

 

"It gets easier." She shrugged, and that was another thing that Harry needed to ask her about some time. It had, over the course of the past few months, become apparent to Harry that Sofia had killed a person before. He just didn't know who, or why, or if there was more than one death on her hands. He was curious.

 

There were more intruders, all dressed in black and all of them male. Sofia was unimpressed with the amount of testosterone they were dealing with. "Don't these people realise how valuable female agents are? I could kill you with a _shoe_."

 

"Please don't." Harry said as he removed a miniature statue from the bowels of his most recent opponent and plunged it right into the chest of the next one. It was rather convenient that these statues were all made of steel, and that Outré Academy had decided to take over what had probably been an art museum at some point. Harry had never seen so many unconventional weapons in one place. He wanted to try all of them, if only to see which ones were the best.

 

"I'll try not to." Sofia wasn't trying anything eccentric, true to her fighting style as usual. She just killed and moved on. She snapped a man's neck and bashed another one's head in with her foot and a wall. "I'm only critiquing them, Harry. They might have been successful if they had agents who weren't peacocking all over the place."

 

"Speaking of agents, where are ours?" Harry shot a man in the face. As if on cue, he heard a scream and a ripple of gunshots from around the corner. He and Sofia paused, and turned to see a handful of Outré Academy agents completely destroying everyone in their path. Sofia pointed at them. "Right behind us, apparently."

 

"How convenient." Harry said, and shot at one of the assailants who apparently hadn't remained dead.

 

"Hart, Kobrska, get downstairs to bunker one now!" One of the agents yelled at them as they all ran past. The agent didn't stop to make sure that Harry and Sofia actually did what they were told, which was a mistake. Harry turned to Sofia with a smirk resting easily on his face. "We're not going to bunker one, are we?"

 

"We should at least figure out where it is, in case we need to make a tactical retreat at any point." Sofia shrugged. There was blood on her forehead. Harry reached out and wiped it away. She didn't say anything, instead moving past him. Harry followed her, assuming that she actually knew where she was headed. Sofia was the kind to skip a training session to just wander around the estate and explore. She had, on one occasion, told Harry that she preferred to know her surroundings before she ever did anything. Harry hoped she knew enough of this place to know where bunker one was.

 

Bunker one turned out to be in the basement, and it turned out to be quite the bloodbath. Students were strewn about everywhere, in various states of destruction. The door to the bunker was cracked open.

 

" _Svâtaâ Mat' Boga. Éto byla zasada_." Sofia whispered in Russian. Harry wasn't sure what exactly she had said, but he assumed it was just a general explanation of the scene in front of them. The invaders had known exactly where to go to take out the most people. Harry and Sofia, in defying orders to go directly to the bunker, had probably saved themselves.

 

"Where are the assailants now?" Harry murmured as he took Sofia's hand in his and moved them slowly through the bodies. Harry didn't know if any of the students were alive. He didn't know if his team was still alive. He only knew that Sofia was beside him, and he needed her to stay there. Harry Hart was not a real Outré Academy agent, or even a possible Kingsman agent. No, in that moment he was just a scared fourteen year old boy wading through corpses with his best friend and girlfriend. His best friend who was also his girlfriend, conveniently enough.

 

Sofia pulled out a gun and glanced behind herself and Harry. "I don't know. But we need to find them, now."

 

"No, we need to gather the wounded." Harry argued as he further opened the door to the bunker. He regretted his actions immediately when a spray of bullets came towards them. Harry shoved Sofia down and rolled away from the door, into the room. A bullet grazed his shoulder, but he just grit his teeth and started firing back. Sofia was right behind him, taking her sweet time with lining up her shots. She didn't miss any of them, though, but Harry knew that she'd be fucked if he hadn't been covering her. That knowledge, that Harry was at her side, was probably what had allowed her to take her time and plan out her shots perfectly.

 

They moved forward slowly, reloading their weapons as needed. Sofia was also picking up the guns from the fallen assailants and strapping them onto herself and Harry. They had quite a few spare holsters.

 

The bunker was huge, but Harry and Sofia weren't the only ones fighting off the intruders. The other students had started to fight back as well, apparently having decided that they weren't going to just sit back and let themselves get killed. Harry was glad for it; it meant that there would be less carnage when they finally dealt with that. He wanted this invasion to briber with. The fact that it was happening was really bothering him. Wasn't Outré Academy supposed to have a good security system in place? Where was it now, when it was actually needed?

 

One of the assailants came at Harry from behind and pressed a gun to Harry's back. Harry felt the warmth of the gun as it touched his shirt and spun around, finger already pulling at the trigger. The assailant still got his shot in before Harry hit him in the head and he fell to the floor. The bullet hit Harry right above his left hip bone, and he fell to his knees with a groan. That hurt. A lot.

 

Harry stayed on the ground for only a few seconds before he remembered what what's going on around him, and then he forced himself to his feet because he wasn't going to just sit there and let people die. That wasn't who he was. So he stood, buried the urge to yell out in pain, and lifted his gun again. His hands were slick with blood, but he still managed to fire away at the remaining assailants. He still managed to take some out, and find Sofia, who was bashing some guy's head in with her knee. He still managed to be astounded to see that there was a knife embedded in Sofia's back, inches from her spine, and that she seemed completely unnerved by its presence.

 

Harry didn't know how long they shed blood with the other students, but they eventually came to an end. There were no more assailants left, and the wounded were being gathered and sorted by order of importance. Sofia still had the knife in her back as she helped Sven drag the corpses off to a corner to be dealt with later. Harry settled in with some third years who had managed to stay somewhat uninjured and were acting as nurses to the injured. He let his gunshot wound get attended to and lied when they asked if he had any other injuries. His head hurt like nothing else and there were spots in his vision occasionally, but Harry knew that he was okay. He would be okay, he just needed some water or something. His injuries were minor in comparison, and he could wait to deal with them once everyone else had been dealt with.

 

* * *

  


Chapter 5

 

It was December eighteenth, 1974, and Harry Hart was in the infirmary with a concussion and a broken arm. Sofia Kobrska was curled up in the chair beside his bed, stubbornly refusing to leave his side until the Outré Academy doctors decided to release him. Outside of the infirmary, everyone else was preparing to go home for Christmas.

 

Sven knocked quietly on the door, and Harry looked up from the book he had been reading. Sofia shifted in her sleep and muttered something in Russian. Harry slid in his bookmark and closed the book. "Hello, Sven."

 

"They figured out who the intruders were." Sven whispered as he silently closed the door behind himself. He walked over and sat down at the end of Harry's bed. "They were from Somalia, apparently. They were targeting the headmistress, because she pissed off some bad guys in Somalia a few months ago."

 

"How many people died, do you know?" Harry asked, watching Sven's pale blue eyes in the dimly lit room. Sven looked away, at Sofia, then back to Harry. "I don't know. I heard thirteen, but that was last night. I don't know how many more bodies they still need to find... Harry, what you did... it was really brave. I wish... I wish I had gone with you instead of running down to the bunker."

 

"You were just doing what you were supposed to." Harry said, explicitly ignoring the little twist in his chest. Sofia was _right there_ , and he was thinking about Sven. Sofia was his _girlfriend_. He couldn't think about Sven. It wasn't right, and it was cruel to Sofia. Harry ran his thumb across the spine of his book. "And, we didn't exactly save anyone."

 

"You did, though." Sven said, sounding annoyed that Harry doubted himself. "We weren't fighting back until we saw you fighting. We were just running, hiding, pretending to be dead. If you and Sofia hadn't decided to go into the fight and actually take control of the situation, I wouldn't be here to thank you. So, thank you, Harry Hart. You saved the day."

 

"I didn't do it alone."

 

"That's true, _simpatičnyj mal'čik_ , but you were the one who wanted to check the wounded." Sofia muttered under her breath, and Harry sat up in his bed, wincing at the sharp pain that went through his head at the sudden movement. She gave him a sleepy half-smile, and Harry wondered how long she had been awake. He felt his face heat up slightly, though he couldn't pinpoint why.

 

Sofia stretched out her legs, which were covered in bandages, and her foot was in a cast. Some time during the fight, one of the assailants had crushed her ankle, not that that had slowed her down in any way. Sofia was Russian. A broken ankle meant nothing to her. She also had bandages across her back, from where the knife had been pulled out and stitched up at the end of the fight. Sofia had kept the knife in her back on purpose; she didn't wasn't to bleed out before it was over. She moved slower now, but she was in no way incapacitated. She blinked, slowly, and looked over at Sven. "It's good to know that I'm not the only one supporting Harry's abilities. Despite how much of a fucking show-off he is, he has very little pride in his work."

 

"Shut up." Harry muttered. Sven laughed, and Harry sent him a soft glare through his bangs, which were a complete floofy mess. "You too, Sven. I'm not supposed to brag. It's not polite."

 

"Harry, please don't lie to yourself." Sven was still laughing. Harry considered tossing his pillow at the blond boy, but decided against it. He didn't know how badly injured Sven was, and he didn't want to further Sven's injuries.

 

Before Harry could come up with a retort, there was a knock on the door. Harry called out, "come in," and the door opened to reveal the headmistress. She took in the sight in front of her, Harry actually in bed with Sofia stretched out in a chair and Sven perched on the edge of Harry's bed, a smile still on his face. The headmistress turned her dark eyes to Harry. "Hart, you are free to go. Your father has sent a jet to pick you up, whenever you are ready to go home."

 

"You have a jet?" Sven sounded impressed. Harry's face grew hot, and he gave the tiniest of nods. "My father's business has one, yes."

 

"Very nice." Sven grinned. Harry's face grew warmer, and he could see Sofia stifling a laugh beside him. He turned to her and narrowed his eyes, daring her to laugh at him outright. But when he looked, he saw something strange in her eyes. A bit of curiousity, as well as hope and what might have been fear, if Harry hadn't known better. Sofia Kobrska had no fear.

 

But the look in her eyes gave Harry an idea. He turned to headmistress Al'Dominque. "I'm going to be bringing Sofia back with me. Is the plane equipped for two?"

 

"For three." Sofia said. She wasn't arguing with Harry's request, which meant that she was curious as to Harry's home life. "I am not going to leave my sister in Russia with my father. And besides, the agent watching her deserves a break. Harry and I can fly to Russia before England, correct?"

 

Both the headmistress and Harry nodded in agreement, and the decision was settled. Sven requested that Sofia tell him all about private jets and England once she got back, and told Harry to be careful in Russia. To Sven, it didn't matter that Sofia and Harry would only be in Russia for a few hours; he was still worried that they would somehow get wrapped up in Sofia's father's business and somehow end up dead. Considering what the two teenagers had just done a few days ago, his worries were reasonable, but Harry wasn't the kind to go picking fights with angry Russian men. He knew his limits. He also knew that, if they ever came to blows with Sergei Kobrsk, Sofia would be the one doing most of the hitting. Sofia was not the kind to make a fight take forever. If she wanted to kill someone, they died. As far as Harry could tell, Sofia wanted to kill her father at some point in her life.

 

When that day came where she felt it right to take Sergei Kobrsk's life, Harry would do whatever was necessary to help Sofia.

 

Harry and Sofia bid their goodbyes to Sven before they went off to their respective rooms to pack. Harry made sure to dress himself up for the plane ride. Even though Sofia didn't care what he looked like (and actually preferred when he wasn't perfectly put together), Harry's parents would not be impressed if their son returned looking like a complete mess. His parents, like all Kingsman agents, prided themselves on their appearance. There was some peacocking behind it all, but it was mostly because people looked more impressive while in a suit. More intimidating, serious. Looking into his mirror, Harry noted that his soft, wild chestnut curls did not make him look serious. He looked like a puppy, or some other kind of cute animal.

 

Harry frowned and began gelling his hair. Again. He hoped that he hadn't forgotten how it was done. He hoped that, during the past four months of learning how to be a proper agent, he hadn't forgotten how to be a proper man. He needed his manners, his outer appearance, if he wanted to come back to Outré Academy again. Harry didn't know for sure, but he wouldn't be surprised if his parents pulled him from Outré Academy because they thought it was turning him chav. Harry's parents weren't bad people, but they were set in their ways. Harry didn't mind too much, so he had never bothered to try and change how his parents thought about most things.

 

There was a knock at the door, but before Harry could say anything, the door was already opening to reveal Sven. Sven looked Harry over, his eyebrows arching higher and higher the longer he stared, and Harry had a sudden urge to hide himself. Instead, he just straightened his tie and gave Sven a (hopefully) charming smile. "I'm just finishing up."

 

"You come from money, don't you?" Sven didn't sound impressed. If anything, he sounded upset, like Harry coming from money was an insult to him or something. Harry wondered momentarily if Sven was jealous of Harry, because Harry had a girlfriend and money. Or maybe Sven liked Sofia, and hated that Harry could get her first. Harry didn't want to lose a friend because of a girl. He also didn't want Sofia to be angry at him if he suddenly broke up with her.

 

Sven was still staring at him, his features quickly changing into something more soft and concerned. "Harry? Are you alright?"

 

"I... yes. Sorry." Harry lifted his hand, ready to run it through his hair, and remembering at the last moment that there was product in his hair and touching it would be a bad idea. Harry's hand hovered over his head for a few moments before he lowered it again. "No, I do come from money but I didn't... I don't want people to treat me differently because of it. You and Sofia are the only ones who have really seen me like... well, like this."

 

Harry motioned at his new attire, much more formal and proper than what he had been donning for the past few months of his life.

 

"You look like you're trying to pass as an adult." Sven said, his lips curling up at the edges in a smile that Harry appreciated, but also really hated. "It's not too bad, though."

 

"Thanks, Sven." Harry said, aggressively ignoring how quickly the room had warmed up at Sven's comment. He turned away from his roommate to continue packing up his things. He wasn't ignoring Sven, exactly, he just couldn't make direct eye contact with the boy at the moment. Harry paused as he threw in a pair of socks. "Did you want something?"

 

"Just to say Merry Christmas, and ask if there was anything you wanted for a present." Sven said. If Harry had turned around then, he would have noticed that Sven was rubbing his left elbow with his right hand nervously, his cheeks a bright red, and his blue eyes fixed on the bed post directly above Harry's head. Harry was not facing Sven, though, and so he didn't see any of that. All he heard was a request for a Christmas list. Not that Harry was going to give Sven one; he didn't want to pressure the Finnish boy into spending money that he may or may not have had in the first place. So Harry hummed and said, "I can't think of anything in particular. What about yourself?"

 

"I... I've always wanted to have a leather jacket." Sven said, and Harry saw him blush that time. Sven's eyes went wide and he swallowed nervously, his mouth slightly open. Sven rubbed at his elbow again. "I mean, jackets are expensive, so you don't need to get me one, I was just... thinking out loud. Sorry."

 

"It's not a problem." Harry said quickly, because it wasn't. Getting Sven a simple leather jacket would be easy, and a good gift as well.

 

He had finished packing his final suitcase, and stood up to his full height, facing Sven. Harry ran his tongue over his bottom lip, wetting it as the two boys just stared at each other. Harry wasn't this awkward in social situations. What was it about Sven that made this so different? Why was Harry struggling to keep up a conversation with Sven even though they knew each other rather well and actually enjoyed being in each other's presence? What was going on? Harry was usually in control of himself and his emotions, always able to mask any nervousness he had, but it wasn't working with Sven anymore. Something had changed, and Harry wasn't sure how he felt about it.

 

Sven pointed at the third suitcase. "Do you want me to grab that for you? My ride doesn't leave for another two hours, so you don't have to worry about me."

 

"Thank you, Sven." Harry said, and with that, their awkward little conversation was over and Sven and Harry made their way out of the building. As headmistress Al'Dominique had said, there was a Kingsman jet waiting for Harry at the bottom of the steps. Sofia was already waiting outside of the plane, seated on top of her one duffel bag and twirling a knife around. The pilot was watching Sofia with confusion obvious on his face. Sven let out a low whistle. "Shit, Harry, what do I have to do to get on that?"

 

"Scare the shite out of me and have a background as tragic as Sofia's." Harry responded initially. Sven stopped and turned around, his eyes taking over Harry's face, looking for any trace of sincerity. He found none, as Harry was soon giving him a crooked grin. "Or you could just ask to spend the summer in London. There's a lot to do there, and I don't mind acting as a tour guide."

 

"You are something else, Hart." Sven's face broke into a smile, and then the two finished their descent. The pilot, a man that Harry didn't recognise, took Harry's and Sofia's luggage, and Harry and Sofia got on the plane after waving goodbye to Sven. He backed away, still waving, before finally giving up and turning around, jogging back up the stairs. Harry watched him leave until Sofia gave a very fake cough and Harry turned around. He at least had the decency to apologise to her. She laughed. "Don't worry about it. It's normal to miss a friend."

 

Harry gave her a smile, and walked over so that they were seated beside each other. Sofia was wearing Harry's blazer again, paired with a scarf and a pair of men's jeans, as well as her usual army boots. Her hair was no longer braided into pigtails, but instead pulled back into what was probably the sloppiest bun Harry had ever seen. She still managed to look dangerous, despite her very casual appearance. Harry supposed that that was because there was a knife resting between her fingers where a cigarette could be, or perhaps Sofia Kobrska just radiated off a vague sense of danger.

 

The plane ride to Russia was spent making small talk, and Sofia attempting to teach Harry some basic Russian. Neither of them expected him to figure it out by the time they landed in Khatassy, but Harry picked up on a few words and phrases. It was obvious that he was English, not Russian, and there was no real grammar structure, but Sofia had been impressed. She told him this as the plane crunched down on the snow, and Harry grinned back, quite proud of himself.

 

Sofia let out a laugh. " _Vy dejstvuete kak pavlin._ You're peacocking."

 

"I know. It's not every day that I learn a new language, you know." Harry said. The door to the plane slid open and Harry and Sofia were suddenly accosted by a gust of wind. The chill seeped in immediately, and Harry shivered, looking for his coat. Sofia was already shoving one on, as well as a hat and scarves. She tossed Harry a pair of gloves and a muffler. He caught them and gave her a questioning look. She pulled her scarf around her face so that Harry could only see her eyes. "It's about thirty eight below out there. Your hands will fall off if they aren't covered... I probably should have warned you about that before we landed."

 

"And you lived here?" Harry asked. Sofia nodded, putting on a third coat and moving towards the door. Harry shook his head as he continued bundling himself up. Of course, because Sofia wasn't intense enough already. She had to live in a fucking iceberg of a town. Harry would still go with her, though, no matter how fucking cold it was. (As a side note, what was it about the cold that increased the vulgarity of Harry's vocabulary?) Harry finished buttoning up his outermost jacket and nodded to Sofia. The two of them left the plane and the pilot who, wisely, decided to just stay back and wait for them. They weren't planning on staying in Khatassy for longer than absolutely necessary, because Sofia hated the place and she only wanted to grab her sister and get the hell out.

 

As they shuffled through the town, Harry could see why. The few people brave enough to be outside were all sending glares towards Sofia and Harry. Harry reached out and took her hand in his, keeping his other hand deep in the pocket of his coat. They continued shuffling until they got to a smaller house out on the edge of the town. There was a light on inside, and Harry could hear someone shouting in Russian. Sofia didn't even flinch as she approached the door. She just walked up and opened it, pushing the wood forward and into the warmth of the house.

 

Inside, there was a large Russian man with a thick beard and a gun. There was also a slimmer man with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. A cigarette dangled from his mouth as he angrily shouted at the bearded man in Russian. The bearded man spat, and then shot his opponent in the head. No one flinched.

 

Sofia let the door slam shut, and the bearded man turned to face her, pointing his gun at her chest. Sofia raised her chin, refusing to be afraid of him. " _Zdravstvujte, otec._ (Hello, father.) _Á zdes' dlâ Natal'â i zašišat' ee agenta._ (I am here for Natalia, and the agent protecting her.)"

  


* * *

  


Chapter 6

 

Natalia turned out to be a tiny seven year old girl who said absolutely nothing and was practically a shadow to Sofia during their travels. The agent turned out to be a mild-mannered woman from Indo-China who could most likely kill Harry and Sofia with her shoe. Sofia wasn't afraid of the agent, though, and even though Harry recognised that she could easily be a threat, he was oddly comforted by her presence. She was just another agent, much like the men Harry had grown up around.

 

The plane stopped over in Moscow to refuel, and so Harry and Sofia spent the night in a very expensive hotel, courtesy of Harry's parents, most likely. Sofia and her sister were in one bed, Harry in the other, and the agent asleep on the couch. The pilot got his own room. Harry had a hard time falling asleep, because when he closed his eyes, he just saw gunshots. He saw gunshots, and Sofia with a knife in her back, and then Sven with a knife in his back, except Sofia and Sven weren't fine, they were bleeding everywhere, and the Somalian assailants were everywhere, but they were actually Sergei Kobrsk, and the room was too hot and too quiet, even though Harry could hear the gunshot going off again and again.

 

He threw off the bed sheets and sat up, his hands shaking. He was going to scream. He couldn't scream. He wasn't going to scream. He bit down hard on the flesh of his hand, willing the pain to bring him back to what he knew to be real. The nightmare was new. This, everything felt new.

 

Harry couldn't stay in the bed. He was going to be sick if he stayed in the bed. He needed to go outside, even though it was the middle of the night in Moscow and outside was freezing. Harry didn't care. He just couldn't stay in his bed.

 

He got up and walked out onto the small balcony, shivering immediately through his cotton pajamas. He wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes, just breathing through his nose. He needed to calm down. Sofia was okay. Sven was okay. Sergei Kobrsk was still in Khatassy. The assailants were all dead. Harry was standing on a cold balcony in Moscow, on his way home to London. The thoughts should have calmed him, and the cold should have helped, but it didn't. Harry was still trapped in his head. He didn't dare close his eyes. He just stood there, gripping the handrail and thinking about anything besides his nightmare.

 

He wasn't sure how long he was out there before he noticed that he wasn't alone. Harry looked over his shoulder to see Sofia standing in the doorway, looking half asleep with her hair tumbling over her shoulders. "You're going to freeze out there, Harry."

 

"I couldn't sleep, sorry." He said, not willing to tell her the reason why. He might eventually explain it to her, but it seemed so wrong for him to get riled up over a single dream. Sofia didn't notice that Harry was unsettled, she just shrugged and closed her eyes for a moment. It was as though she was about to just go back to sleep while still on her feet. Harry walked away from the balcony and put his hands on Sofia's shoulders. "Sofia..."

 

She opened her eyes and blinked rapidly, shaking her head. "Sorry. Tired. Were you saying something?"

 

"Just that you ought to get back in bed." Harry gave her a smile that would hopefully cover how he felt. "I'll close the door, just go and get some rest."

 

"Harry, if something is bothering you, there's nothing wrong with asking for help." Sofia said. Harry knew that she was right, knew that he could rely on her, but he just shook his head. He would be fine. It was just a simple nightmare. Considering the events a few days prior, a nightmare wasn't completely unexpected. Sofia seemed to understand what Hrrt wasn't saying, so she ducked under his hand and went back into the hotel room, quietly pulling the door shut behind her. Harry let out a breath once she was gone, watching it turn to mist in the cold night air.

 

He was shivering, finally, and he couldn't feel his feet. Harry stomped on the ground, further coating his slippers in the slush on the floor of the balcony. A deep shiver coursed through him, and he decided that that was a good a sign as any that it was time for him to give up and go back inside the hotel room and try to sleep.

 

Harry kicked off his slippers and crawled under the covers, pulling them up under his chin and curling up in a ball under the sheets. He closed his eyes and continued to shiver for a few more minutes before sleep finally took over. It was a fitful sleep, because Harry kept seeing the same horrors again and again (and every time he saw them, he would jerk awake and have to calm back down again), but it was better than nothing. He could feel Sofia's eyes on him as they left the next morning, but he ignored her and instead focused on not falling asleep on the plane ride to London.

 

The plane ride was rather uneventful, which was nice. Harry, Sofia, the agent, and Natalia (Sofia's sister) were all dropped off at the London airport, and the pilot took the plane off to what he said was a private hangar. Harry knew where it was really going: the Kingsman headquarters out in the English countryside. The headquarters was gorgeous, grand and elegant as though it were straight out of a Victorian-era novel. Harry had only been there three times, and he had been with a chaperone on all three occasions. This winter, however, was going to be different. Harry was planning to sneak Sofia into the headquarters somehow. His hand was already registered in the fingerprint recognition system, so he knew he could get in. It was just a matter of getting into the tailor shop (the Kingsman cover location on Savile row) without his parents or any of the other Kingsman noticing his disappearance.

 

"So, is there a car waiting for us or do we need to get to your house on our own?" Sofia asked him once the agent had disappeared off to find a flight to her home country.

 

"My father probably has a car outside." Harry said. "He knows that we're coming."

 

Harry was right, of course, and he heard Sofia murmur something in Russian as she got in. Harry couldn't tell what she said, but Natalia obviously found it amusing because the girl was wearing a small little smile all the way to the Hart's flat in London. The flat itself was unassuming, considering that it was just a standard issue Kingsman flat with an extra guest room for Harry to use. It was up against the street, with a small garden in the front and a larger on in the back, but it was the only home that Harry had ever known.

 

"Not bad for a _simpatičnyj mal'čik_." Sofia glanced at Harry over her sister's head and gave him a wink. Harry didn't know what to make of her comment, so he just winked back and got out of the car. The Kingsman driver helped Sofia and Natalia out of the car as Harry opened the trunk and started unloading the luggage. Once everything was out of the car, Harry and Sofia thanked the driver and walked up to the house. Harry knocked on the door, hoping that either of his parents were home to let him inside. He didn't want Sofia or Natalia that Harry normally got locked out of his house.

 

Harry actually did spend a lot of his time unable to get into his house because of his lack of available parents. Harry's parents had never given Harry a key, because they feared that one day Harry would get kidnapped by an enemy, and that the enemy--instead of holding Harry as a hostage against his parents--would nick Harry's key and rob the Harts' estate instead. Harry thought the reason was stupid, but he knew better than to argue with his parents. The only difference was that, normally, whenever Harry couldn't get in, he would just head to the tailor shop and stay there until the status of his parents changed. Every once in a while, Percival would let Harry spend his homeless days at Percival's flat, because Percival was an uncle to eight different kids and understood that leaving a young boy in a tailor shop for days on end wasn't a good plan.

 

The door opened, but neither of Harry's parents were on the other side. Instead, it was Tristan--real name: Julian Davis--and he looked surprised to see Harry's companions. The surprised look quickly faded to mild interest, and a polite smile featured on his face. "Ah, Harry, who are these ladies?"

 

"Sofia and Natalia." Harry said. "Sofia and I are schoolmates... she's also my girlfriend."

 

Tristan managed to look impressed. Harry wasn't sure if the look was genuine or if he was just screwing with Harry for the hell of it. Considering Tristan, either was possible. Tristan was one of the more entertaining Kingsman agents, which was one of the reasons that Harry enjoyed his presence more than, say, Gareth, who thought that Harry's mother should have quit Kingsman the moment she learned she was having a child, and treated Harry like an idiot. Harry didn't get along with Gareth and his old-fashioned ways.

 

Tristan welcomed them in and explained that Harry's parents were out on a business trip and wouldn't be back for a few more days. He couldn't tell Harry the truth unless Sofia and Natalia were out of the way, since Harry hadn't told Tristan that Sofia knew what his parents really did outside of tailoring. Harry wasn't sure that he should tell Tristan the truth, because Kingsman was supposed to be a _secret_ service, and telling the daughter of a Russian mercenary about an English group of agents was probably not the safest thing in the world. Of course, Tristan didn't know how much Harry trusted Sofia. Tristan didn't know that Sofia would betray her own father before she'd betray Harry. Harry was a friend. Sergei Kobrsk was not.

 

"Your friends can stay in the guest room downstairs." Tristan said, which was his way of telling Harry to show the girls to their room so that he could fully explain everything to Harry. So Harry showed them to their room and let them unpack, then followed Tristan back down to the sitting room to discuss things.

 

Tristan was already seated in a chair and had lit himself a cigar. He put his lighter (the one that wasn't a hand grenade) away and looked to Harry, talking around the cigar. "How much have you told her?"

 

"She knows that my parents aren't tailors, but I haven't told her anything classified." Harry tried to not breathe in the smoke. He had no problem with smoking, but Tristan's cigars were particularly pungent. Harry hated how they smelled. They were rank and Harry had no idea how Tristan got any enjoyment out of them.

 

The man whose habits were in question set down his cigar in the ashtray beside the couch and gave Harry a condescending parental look that Harry knew rather well. Even though he had been a good student and child growing up, he had had approximately twelve parents. The other Kingsman agents raised him as much as his own parents did. Harry knew what was coming: Tristan was about to tell Harry some rules, and Harry just needed to nod along and agree to them all without seeming like a smartass. Considering that he was a smartass, it would be difficult.

 

"Harry," Tristan started, and the teenage boy wanted to roll his eyes back into his head and fall over. "Kingsman has a confidentiality agreement for a reason. We operate at the highest level of discretion, and we are humble about what we do."

 

Here Harry nodded, sound his best to look bashful. _It's not like I told her all of Kingsman's secrets, Jesus Christ. I just told her the truth. And besides, she told me first, so really, I was just being nice._

 

"You've spoken about wanting to become a Kingsman agent yourself one day, do you still want that?" Tristan asked, picking his cigar back up and taking another pull from it so that the end lit up in an angry red colour. Harry nodded again. Tristan smiled. "Then you'll understand why your friend shouldn't learn anything else about this organisation unless she plans to join it as well, yes?"

 

"I understand." Harry said. Tristan then nodded, dismissing him. Harry left as soon as he was dismissed, finally getting to drag his things to his room upstairs. He had forgotten how much he enjoyed his room, with its National Geographic posters on the ceiling and the butterfly habitat in the corner. Harry wondered if any of the Kingsman had bothered to keep his butterflies alive while he had been away. He hadn't told his parents about them, since they weren't at home long enough to freak out about the bugs in their perfect little house. Harry set his bags by the closet and went over to the butterflies first. He let out a sigh as he took in the depressing state of the enclosure. There were seven butterfly corpses in total, and they hadn't even been preserved. He couldn't even pin them up on his wall as a kind of memorial for his first successful project. His first set of pets that he had kept alive on his own, and they'd died the moment he stepped away from his own house.

 

There, still on his desk, was the copy of the _Sun_ paper from last July. Harry had kept it only because it had covered a royal family incident that had occurred the very same day Harry's father had saved the prince's younger sister from a band of Russian mercenaries. Harry found it amusing that the journalists had gotten close to the real event of that day, but hadn't actually gotten it.

 

Not that Harry actually expected the _Sun_ of all papers to print anything of substance, but still. It was rather amusing.

 

Harry stuffed the paper into a desk drawer, not sure what else to do with it at the moment. He would have to throw away the butterflies as well, and then go order some new larvae to try again, though maybe he'd wait until the summer, so that he could actually be around to make sure that nothing unfortunate happened to them while he was out of the country.

 

As Harry was removing each individual butterfly from the enclosure, he felt someone's eyes on his back. He dropped the last corpse into the plastic bag he was using as a trash bag and turned around, not at all surprised to see Sofia perched on the edge of his bed and looking straight at him with a slight tilt to her head. Her pale green eyes flicked down to the bag of butterflies. "Harry Hart, you're a fucking weirdo."

 

"Because I had butterflies instead of a dog?" Harry asked. "My mum's allergic, otherwise I would have one, and he wouldn't have died while I was off at school."

 

"There's nothing wrong with having butterflies... but I need to ask this," Sofia glanced around the dimly lit room, taking in all of Harry's quirks. "Did you have any friends before you met me?"

 

"Not really."

 

"I thought so." Harry would have been insulted by that if it hadn't been so true. He was odd, he knew that, and it was only because of sheer luck that he had made friends with Sofia. She might have been just as odd as he was, but she was friendly and personable where Harry was awkward and reserved. Harry was good at conversing with people, but he could never get past pleasant conversation with anyone. No one his age shared any of his interests, and the people older than him didn't want to be friends with a child.

 

Sofia watched as Harry finished cleaning out the butterfly enclosure. "So, who was that man? Does he work with your parents?"

 

"He does." Harry said, because fuck discretion. "He's a Kingsman agent, but you can't tell him I told you. He's pissed at me already for telling you about my parents."

 

Sofia's face dropped and she actually looked concerned for once. She and Harry had gotten into a lot of stupid shit over the past few months, a lot of things that could've (should've) gotten them kicked out of the school, but Harry had never seen Sofia show any signs of worry. She didn't care if she, or Harry or Sven for that matter, got into trouble for messing around where they weren't supposed to. But she was worried now. She tucked a stray piece of blonde hair behind her ear. "You're not in trouble, though, are you? I don't want you to lose your chance at becoming a Kingsman because of me."

 

"I'm not in trouble." Harry said. He walked over and sat down beside her, placing his hand on top of hers. "I'm actually planning on visiting the headquarters tomorrow night. Would you like to join me?"

 

Sofia blinked at him. Harry wasn't sure if it was because they were somewhat holding hands for the first time, or because of what he had just suggested. "Are you serious?"

 

"I am." Harry nodded. Sofia grinned. " _Mne očen' hotelos' by pojti_. I would love to go."

 

* * *

  


Chapter 7

 

Sneaking out the next night was surprisingly easy. Tristan had decided that Harry and Sofia were responsible enough to take care of themselves and Sofia's seven year old sister the day before, and had decided to go out for a pint with some of his university friends. He would be back late at night, leaving the three of them to do whatever they wished at the house. Sofia felt a little uneasy leaving Natalia alone in a house she didn't know and without anyone to protect her, but Harry assured her that the Hart house was pretty damn safe. Harry had survived fourteen years there on his own without anyone breaking in to try to kill him, so Natalia would be fine.

 

Sofia muttered something in Russian, probably questioning Harry's reasoning. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for her. She went with him regardless, and the two trudged through the rainy streets of London, hailing a taxicab to the Kingsman tailor shop. They rode in silence, save for Harry paying and thanking the driver, who gave them an odd look as they got out. It was understandable; why on earth would two teenagers want to go to a tailor shop in the middle of the night, even though the tailor shop was closed? Harry just hoped that the driver wasn't about to call the cops on him and Sofia. That was the last thing he needed, and his parents and Tristan would probably skin him alive for compromising Kingsman like that.

 

The driver left without saying goodbye, and Harry and Sofia stood out in front of the shop, looking up at it through the rain. Sofia shoved her hands into the pockets of her stolen suit jacket. "This is it? I thought the headquarters were... grander than just a fucking tailor shop."

 

"They are, this is just the best way in." Harry smiled and pulled out a set of keys. He had knicked them off of Tristan, and he knew which one opened the door to the tailor shop. He walked up to the door and unlocked it, letting Sofia in first. They moved through the darkness, both knowing that turning on the lights was a mistake. Even though neither of them had stolen from a place after dark (and as far as Harry knew, neither of them planned to do it any time soon), they had heard enough stories from their classmates to know that turning the lights off was stupid.

 

Harry found his way to dressing room one, and opened the door. He nudged Sofia's arm. "Come on. This is the entrance."

 

They both got into the room, and then Harry closed the door and turned on the light so he could see the mirror and know where to place his hand. Sofia looked on expectantly, not saying anything but merely waiting as Harry raised his arm and pressed his hand to the mirror. The mirror scanned his hand, and the floor began to sink. Sofia's eyes widened ever so slightly, and Harry let out a shallow laugh at having made her unsettled. He spread his arms out as they continued to descend. "Welcome to Kingsman, Sofia Kobrska."

 

"You weren't lying when you said that the entrance is in the middle of the earth." Sofia looked up to where the tailor shop was. "This takes forever. Can't it go faster?"

 

"When I become a Kingsman agent I'll make sure to improve the speed of the secret entrance." Harry said. "It will be the first thing I do, I promise."

 

"It fucking better." Sofia said. "Because I'm going have to spend a lot of time on my way over from Russia, I don't want to waste it all in a fucking elevator."

 

Harry laughed. He liked the idea that, in some unknown number of years, he and Sofia would still be friends. That Sofia would be flying all the way from Russia to meet up with Harry in the Kingsman headquarters, probably for no other reason than to be around him and get him into trouble. Not that Harry would have a problem with getting into trouble. Now that he had a friend, messing around was quite fun.

 

Finally the room reached the bottom, and Harry led Sofia to the train car. The two of them shot off to the English countryside, and a few minutes later, the car stopped and opened back up, revealing a still lit up headquarters. Sofia stepped out, looking over her shoulder at Harry with an eyebrow raised questioningly. "Are you sure we should be doing this? It was okay in Morocco because everyone else was a civilian, but these people are actual spies."

 

"We'll be fine." Harry said as the door closed and the train disappeared back to the tailor shop. He walked up and pulled her over to the wall length window overlooking the hangar where all the planes and other vehicles were held. It was quite a sight, and Harry still remembered the awe he had felt looking down on it for the first time. He had been ten years old, and his mother had decided to take him to the headquarters on her one day off. Harry had basically pressed his face to the glass like he was a kid seeing a Christmas display for the first time in his life. Harry wanted to show Sofia the same thing. He figured that she would appreciate the immensity of the hangar.

 

The two teenagers stood in front of the window, Harry grinning at Sofia and Sofia staring down at the airplanes below. She stared for a good thirty seconds before she looked up at Harry. She looked completely unimpressed. "That's it? Where are all the weapons and training rooms and shit?"

 

"Sofia, do you not see the fighter jets?" Harry motioned at said fighter jets. Sofia's piercing green eyes flicked back out to the hangar. She nodded. "I do. But I don't care about airplanes. I don't know how to fly them. I do know how to use a shooting range, and a gun, so if you could continue your little tour...?"

 

Harry rolled his eyes but led Sofia on and into the depths of headquarters. Harry knew where the shooting range was (Percival had taken him there twice to teach him how to properly shoot any kind of gun that a scrawny, thin, floofy haired kid could handle without falling back on his ass), and he knew that Kingsman kept a few weapons at the firing range just in case one of the agents didn't have their own.

 

Harry figured out how to get past the lock, and flipped on the lights. Here, Sofia's mouth stretched into a grin and she strode forward, running her fingers over each individual weapon with a softness that Harry had only seen her use with her younger sister. Harry stood back and just watched, figuring that this was Sofia Kobrska in her natural habitat. This was where she belonged, where she was comfortable, and Harry was willing to just let her roam free and enjoy it all on her own.

 

She picked up a handgun and checked to see if it was loaded, then walked over to one of the ranges. There was a target set up and Sofia fired all nine rounds into the chest of the target, hitting the same one inch radius every time. She set the fund down and turned to look at Harry. "Do you have any targets that move?"

 

"Yes, let me just..." Harry moved over to the control booth and found the controls that brought out the moving targets. He looked up and noted which range Sofia was in, then activated the targets in that range. The floor opened up and six mannequins appeared, each naked and painted like a target. The sight was hilarious, and Harry laughed at the naked people rolling around in front of Sofia. She looked over her shoulder as she was reloading her gun. "Oh come on, like you haven't seen a naked person before. You just left a boarding school."

 

"Yes, but my roommates didn't have scoreboards on their bodies." Harry replied, just as Sofia turned around and shot a target in the head. She shot another in the neck, three in the chest, and the last one got a bullet to the stomach. Sofia told Harry that the stomach wound wouldn't kill the mannequin immediately, but it would bleed out in about a minute if it had been a real person and not a plastic replica. Harry rolled his eyes. "Stop peacocking, Sofia. I knew that already."

 

"Sorry, I forgot that you know how to kill people." She said, and it should have sounded insulting, but it wasn't.

 

Sofia set down the gun and turned away from the targets. She stared at Harry, her pale green eyes flicking up and down, looking him over. Or trying to decide where she would attack him first if she wanted to fight him. With Sofia Kobrska, it was hard to tell what she was planning. She seemed to enjoy how people couldn't interpret her correctly, and Harry had enjoyed it up until the moment she became his girlfriend. Suddenly he felt like he needed to know what she was thinking, what she meant when she looked at him and smiled or shook her head or raised her eyebrows; Harry felt like he needed to understand her, now that he was dating her. It just seemed appropriate: keep the girlfriend happy, make her want to be around you more, please her. That was what the Kingsman agents had instilled in Harry (though none of them--aside from Harry's father--were very good at keeping a woman for longer than a few months).

 

"Harry." Sofia said his name like she was pissed at him, and he looked back at her with wide brown eyes. She laughed, most likely at his expression. "You tired already? I just asked if you wanted a turn."

 

"I'm sorry, my mind just wandered." Harry said, not willing to admit what exactly he had been thinking about. He didn't think that sharing his insecurities with her would be a good idea, especially in their current situation. Harry stepped away from the control booth. "And, thank you for the offer, but I have more to show you. Do you want to see where they keep the new recruits?"

 

"Is it special in any way, or is it just a regular old room?" Sofia asked, putting her hands on her hips. Harry just smiled. He hadn't seen the inside of the recruits' bunks yet, because he wanted to be a Kingsman himself and knowing the layout of the room would somehow give him an advantage over the other recruits (at least according to Percival). Harry did, however, know _where_ the bunks were, and he did know that there were some interesting features in the room. He didn't know what exactly they were, but he figured that he and Sofia would be able to figure them all out quickly enough. They were pretty smart, considering the fact that they were only fourteen (Sofia was actually fifteen, but had decided to stay back an extra year before joining Outré Academy).

 

Harry led Sofia through the building, doing his best to remember the path that Tristan and Percival had taken him when they'd given Harry a tour of the headquarters. Harry only had to backtrack once, and Sofia didn't even seem to notice that he had gotten them a bit lost.

 

Finally, after an indeterminate amount of time, Harry stopped in front of a familiar metal door. The door had a code on it, of course, because everything in this building had a code on it. Even the shooting range, but Harry had remembered Percival's code from two years ago and it had still worked. He figured that the same thing would happen with this door.

 

It didn't, because Harry's luck was shite and apparently someone out there really didn't want him to see the inside of the recruits' bunks.

 

What happened was so classic that it might as well have been the script to a James Bond movie. Harry typed in the code that he thought would still work. It didn't work. The hall started flashing red and a shrill alarm went off. Sofia screamed over the alarm, asking Harry what the fuck was going on, did he spell it wrong or something? No, Harry had remembered the password from two years prior correctly, except the password had obviously been changed. And Harry didn't know what the new one was.

 

The doors on either side of them slammed shut, trapping Harry and Sofia in front of the recruits' room with nowhere to go. And then, because Kingsman was a fucking spy agency and apparently really paranoid about everything, a laser grid showed up. And it started moving towards them. There was another grid coming from the other door, successfully trapping Harry and Sofia together in what would most likely end in their death. Sofia stood in the middle, green eyes wide and her body frozen. "Harry, do something."

 

"Like what?" Harry asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. "We're stuck, Sofia. I can't just blow the fucking door open and get us out of here!"

 

Sofia's face fell into one of sudden insight. Harry imagined a comic book style lightbulb popping up above her head. She let out a gasp and reached into her coat, pulling out a gun with a silencer already on it. Harry frowned. "Did you steal that from the shooting range?"

 

"Yes, now step away from the lock so I don't shoot you by mistake." Sofia said, raising the gun and not really waiting for Harry to back away. Not that Harry had a lot of room to back up into, as there was only about four feet between the two laser grids. Sofia shot the keypad twice, and with a hiss, the door opened. They both ran inside, Harry shutting the door tightly behind them and leaning against it. He ran a hand through his hair, successfully messing it up again, and grinned at Sofia. The fear was finally settling into a more enjoyable adrenaline rush. "So, how are you enjoying the tour, Sofia?"

 

" _Ty sumasšedšij, krasivyj mal'čik_. (You're crazy, pretty boy.)" Sofia said, but she was smiling back at him. She put her gun back in her jacket pocket. It was Harry's jacket, of course, because Sofia couldn't just wear a winter coat like a normal person. She had to prove that the British were weak in comparison to Russians when it came to dealing with the cold. She wasn't wrong, but Harry still wished she wouldn't treat his jacket like it was just a cheap thing to wear around anywhere she wanted. It wasn't the most expensive thing that Harry had ever owned, but it definitely was not cheap.

 

He looked around at the room, but there was nothing particularly interesting about it. Just two rows of beds, six beds each, and a half wall concealing the toilets and the shower heads from the beds. Harry frowned. "This is complete shite."

 

"Yeah, also what's with the communal toilets?" Sofia pointed at the objects in question, her nose scrunched up in disgust. "Do girls and boy just have to go in front of each other?"

 

"...there usually aren't girl recruits. My mother was an exception." Harry said, moving over to the nearest bed. He fell back on it, his head half hanging off the edge. "Sorry the tour Isn't as interesting as I thought it would be."

 

"We almost died. That is interesting enough." Sofia said. Harry lifted his head to see that she had perched herself on the half wall and was scratching at the tile on the wall. Harry let his head drop back down as Sofia began talking again. "Harry, I'm not going to stop you from becoming a Kingsman, because if this is what you want, what you _really_ want, then you should go for it. And Kingsman doesn't seem so horrible. But..."

 

Harry could feel Sofia's thoughts rolling around in her head. She was thinking about telling him something, something personal that she probably hadn't told anyone before. Harry propped himself up on his elbows so that he could see her face. He felt it was right to make eye contact with her if she was about to get deep and revealing with him.

 

She didn't get very far before she and Harry were interrupted. All Harry heard was, "I didn't start killing people as a street--" and then the door was opening and a man with bright red hair stood in the doorway. Beside him, there was another man in a suit, a Kingsman agent that Harry had seen but didn't know the name of. Harry sat up straight, internally screaming at himself. He shouldn't have stayed in the room. He had set off the fucking alarm; the Kingsman were bound to come investigate what had happened. Well, there they were, a ginger man in a sweater and an unamused agent in a bespoke suit, not a silvery black hair out of place. The agent shook his head. "Harry Hart, your father would be so disappointed in you. You broke into this building, showed our secrets to the enemy, and destroyed our property."

 

"Yes, I did." Harry said, because he saw Sofia standing up in the corner of his eye, and he didn't want her getting in trouble because he had fucked up. He got up off the bed completely. "But Sofia is not the enemy. Her father is, and she hates him as much as you seem to."

 

"Harry." The agent started, but the red-haired man beside him shook his head. The agent closed his mouth. The red-haired man stepped into the room, never turning his back on Sofia. "Harry, you haven't met me yet, but my name is George Emrys. I'm the head of Kingsman's technical department. I'm going to need to talk to Sofia Kobrska about this incident if you want to continue sharing information about Kingsman with her."

 

"You mean you'd clear her?" Harry asked. Emrys raised his eyebrows, and Harry thought he saw a smile somewhere. "You're not giving me much of a choice, Mr. Hart. Yes, I would like to clear Sofia, assuming that she passes the tests I give her."

 

"Thank you." Harry said. He made eye contact with Sofia and she gave him a nod of confirmation. She was fine with that. She didn't have anything to hide from Emrys or the dark haired agent still standing in the doorway with a scowl on his face. So Harry let Emrys take her off to some interrogation room somewhere, and Harry trudged off after the agent, whose name he still didn't know. Harry wanted to know. Harry likes knowing things about the people of Kingsman. He could always ask Tristan or Percival later, but he would much rather just figure it out in his own. Harry preferred doing things on his own, unless Sofia Kobrska was involved. Things were much more interesting around the Russian girl.

 

The agent led Harry up the stairs and into the main, livable area of the mansion. Harry didn't know where he was being led, but he assumed that he was going to be interrogated the same way Sofia was, though perhaps a bit less intensive, considering that Harry wasn't the child of a dangerous Russian man. No, Harry was just the child of two dangerous English people.

 

They stopped in front of a door that led to one of the on-site suites, where the handlers and some agents stayed in between missions. The agent turned to Harry and gave him the same look that he had been giving Sofia the whole time they had been in a room together. "Your father got in two hours ago. You'll be explaining your recent activities to him now."

 

The agent opened the door, and sure enough, Christopher Hart sat in a chair on the other side. He was smoking a cigarette, looking thoroughly bored with everything. He didn't even acknowledge that Harry had entered the room, and only looked up when the agent closed the door behind himself. Hart took the cigarette from his mouth and blew out a thin stream of smoke. "Agent Gareth. Thank you for doing what I asked. I'll see you Thursday for the game, I suppose?"

 

"Yes, Agent Galahad." Gareth said, giving a single nod to Harry's father. "Take care. Tell your wife I said hello."

 

And with that, Gareth left Harry and his father alone in the suite. Hart took another slow drag from his cigarette as Harry just stood by the door. He knew better than to sit down unless his father told him to do so. Harry's father was already beyond pissed at him. Harry didn't need to make it worse. Christopher Hart followed the notion that children were meant to be seen, not heard, and that they didn't exist unless an adult informed them of their existence. Hart was especially strict about his thoughts when he was angry.

 

Hart breathed out smoke again. "Harold. I am ashamed to call you my son."

 

Full name usage. No one actually called Harry _Harold_ unless they were about to verbally tear him a new one, or they were his Aunt Peggy. And Aunt Peggy only did that because she wanted him to not associate his name with only bad things. She wanted Harry to think of his full name as only a word, not an insult. That was probably because Peggy's and Harry's mother's parents had only called Peggy _Margeret_ when she did something they didn't approve of. Such as lie to the government and run away to join the SSR during the Second World War.

 

"Harold, I am speaking to you." Christopher Hart said, his voice dropping ever so slightly. He leaned forward, his hazel eyes glaring into Harry's brown ones. "When someone speaks to you, the polite thing to do is respond."

 

"I apologise, father." Harry said, but it was forced. Usually Harry felt bad whenever he upset his parents, or any other adult for that matter, but something has changed in him. He was suddenly annoyed by everything his father was doing, and not interested in trying to please the man. So while he wasn't outright being an asshole to his father, he wasn't being his usual, polite, demure self. Harry hoped that his father was just too pissed off with his actions to notice the subtle shift in attitude.

 

"You should be." Hart did not put his cigarette out but instead placed it between his two fingers and walked over to Harry. His Oxfords clicked softly on the wooden floor, and Harry realised that the man in front of him could easily kill him if he wanted to. And Harry wouldn't really know how to defend himself, because he had only been in training for four months. While that wasn't horrible, his father had been in Kingsman since the Second World War and had been in the military for two years before he was recruited. His father also did not have the body of a fourteen year old boy halfway through puberty. There was such an imbalance and Harry hated it. Not that he actually thought he and his father would ever be in a situation where one had to kill the other, but Harry still didn't appreciate how uneven they were with each other other. If Harry was going to become a real Kingsman agent then he needed to be on the other agents level. They couldn't see him as Christopher and Miranda's son. They had to see him as Harry or as an equal. Not as some silly kid who didn't know shit about shit. Harry couldn't have that.

 

Hart stood in front of Harry with his cigarette in hand. He stared down at the boy. "Lift your arm, young man. I'm going to teach you your first lesson in manners, because, as I have told you, and the Kingsman have told you before, manners. Maketh. Man."

 

* * *

  
  


Chapter 8

 

Harry didn't tell Sofia about the fresh burn marks that were now up and down his arm. It wasn't the first time Christopher had done something like that to Harry, and like all the times prior, Harry had done something to deserve the punishment. But he couldn't tell Sofia, because she wouldn't understand. Her father was actually abusive. Her father was horrible to Sofia and Natalia whether they did what they were supposed to or not. Harry's father only burned Harry if Harry had displeased him.

 

Honestly, Harry didn't mind it that much, because what his father did to him was so much better than what being a Kingsman agent would entail. Waterboarding was a possibility when Harry became an agent and was put in the field. Breaking a bone, loosing a finger or a toe or a tooth or an ear, those were all possibilities. Harry knew that there were agents who had been taken out of commission not because they had died, but because they had been held captive for so long that there was only a shell of a man left behind, and Kingsman couldn't send out broken agents. So Harry refused to break. He refused to break before he even got recommended as a candidate. Harry Hart was strong, and he didn't need Sofia's righteous anger at Harry's father's actions.

 

So he didn't tell her. He just grinned broadly and wrapped her in a hug when she and Emrys showed up at the suite and Emrys told Harry that Sofia had as much clearance as he did now, meaning that they could go anywhere in HQ or the tailor shop... as long as they had a chaperone.

 

Emrys even offered to be that chaperone. While Harry appreciated the offer, he knew that the Merlin position was just as vital as the Arthur position, if not more. Kingsman would most likely fall into ruin if they lost their Merlin, which was why Merlins usually hired an apprentice when they started to get old. Emrys, as far as Harry knew, didn't have one yet, but that was understandable considering that the man looked only a few years over thirty. He probably wouldn't need to find an apprentice for another fifteen years, if not more.

 

So Harry just thanked Emrys before following his father and Sofia out of the headquarters. Hart had decided that Harry and Sofia had done enough exploring for one day, and that they were going to return back to the flat and go to bed. Harry would probably receive the full punishment for his recklessness in the morning.

 

The ride back was silent. Uncomfortably silent. Harry and Sofia were seated opposite of Harry's father, and the man did not look at either of them for the entirety of the ride back. He did not acknowledge them when the train stopped, and barely waited for them to take the room elevator up to the shop. The taxi ride back to the house was just as awkward, and Hart only spoke to the driver to thank him for taking them back.

 

They got out, and Hart led the way into the house. Harry and Sofia followed, Sofia growing tense beside Harry as they walked. Harry glanced over at her, and she whispered " _moâ sestra_ " to him. She was worried about Natalia... which meant that she had picked up on just how angry Christopher Hart really was at that moment. Harry didn't know how he could reassure her. He couldn't say anything, not without setting his father off. And Harry didn't want to do that in front of Sofia. She dealt with enough in Russia; she didn't need to have to avoid another father in what should have been a safe place for her and her younger sister. So Harry didn't say anything, but instead reached out with his hand and took Sofia's in his. She glanced down at their hands and then looked back up at Harry. He gave her hand a (hopefully) reassuring squeeze. She nodded. She understood what Harry was trying to do.

 

Christopher Hart slammed open the door to the master bedroom, where Harry knew that Tristan had been staying for the past few days. "Agent Tristan."

 

The man in question blinked as the lights were rudely turned on, disrupting his sleep. His hair was missed and he still looked a little drunk from his night out with friends. When he realised who was standing in the doorway, he sat up straight and made a half-hearted attempt to salvage his appearance. "Carodoc. You're back early."

 

"I got news that headquarters had been compromised, so instead of cleaning up my mess, I returned here." Christopher Hart stepped in the room, his hands in the pockets of his tailored pants, looking pristine and incredibly unimpressed with everyone around him. "I returned to find out that the intruders were a pair of teenagers who thought that sneaking around in a place they were not allowed was acceptable, because their chaperone was not alert to their activities. One of these two teenagers calls himself my son. The other is the daughter of a communist mercenary who has been on our radar for six years, at least. Neither of these children should have been in that building, but because of your apparently inability to refrain from juvenile activities for a mere fortnight, they were."

 

"Carodoc, look, I thought they were responsible--"

 

"I don't care what you thought about this boy and his friend." Christopher cut Tristan off. "Get out of my house."

 

Luckily for everyone involved, Tristan did what he was told, and was gone twenty minutes later after gathering all of his clothes and the small suitcase he had brought along with him. Christopher watched him leave, and once the door had closed behind the other Kingsman agent, he turned on Harry and Sofia. "Both of you, to your respective rooms. I don't know what Merlin told you about returning to headquarters, but I hold more authority over you both. Neither of you are to leave _this house_ unless I allow it. You are not allowed to ask to leave either. Now, leave me in peace before I rethink my decisions."

 

Harry and Sofia did as they were told. Harry went up the stairs to his room and closed the door behind himself. He leaned against the door and slid down into a seated position, putting his head in his hands and letting out a muffled scream of frustration. This was not fair. Harry's father had never been like this around anyone else; he was a Goddamn spy for crying out loud! He knew how to at least _act_ like he didn't despise someone. Christopher Hart had no good reason to be so damn rude to Sofia just because she wasn't refined in the way that he was used to.

 

Harry removed his hands from his face and leaned his head back against the door. It wasn't as though he could do anything about his father. Christopher Hart was in charge of their family; what he decided was correct happened (or didn't happen). If Christopher Hart decided that Sofia was never allowed in the Hart house ever again, then she wouldn't ever get to come back so long as Hart was alive and Harry lived with his parents. It was unfortunate, but it could easily become his and Sofia's reality.

 

He couldn't do that to Sofia and Natalia. They deserved a break from the shit that they had to deal with in Russia. Not that there was anything that Harry could do about the situation, because that would be admitting to Sofia that Hart occasionally punished Harry in ways that were similar to how Harry supposed that Sofia's father abused Sofia and her sister. Harry wasn't about to do that. Sofia would probably try to kill Hart for that. While Harry was becoming less and less of a fan of his father the older he got, he didn't quite yet want the man to die.

 

So he just sat on the floor and thought about his life. At some point he fell asleep, because it was late at night and he was coming down from an adrenaline high anyway. He slept fitfully, occasionally waking up in cold sweat with no particular memory of what he had just dreamed about. He was only sure that it had involved the massacre at the end of the school year. Harry finally gave up on sleep at about seven and moved from his door to his closet, pulling out proper attire for being around his father for an extended period of time. For the thousandth time in his life, Harry wished that he had a bathroom connected to his own room, but that wasn't his reality. Harry had to leave his room every time he wanted to shower or fix his hair or brush his teeth or anything else, really. He hated being seen before he was ready to be seen. It wasn't so much vanity as it was a need to look the part that everyone expected him to play. And Harry couldn't do that after a night of drifting off on the floor in front of his door. He looked like a right mess. And he had to chance facing his father looking like that. He wasn't looking forward to it, but he knew that there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Hart would be pissed of with Harry whether it was seven in the morning or ten in the morning.

 

Harry left his room with fresh clothes in hand and headed straight to the bathroom, which was right across the hall from his room and right next to his father's office. His mother's office was right beside his room. Harry locked himself in the bathroom and showered as quickly as he could. He was doing everything as quickly as he could, because he was afraid that Sofia and his father were downstairs together and he was afraid of what Sofia might do to him. Or what he might do to Sofia and Natalia. Harry figured that Sofia wouldn't get enraged if Hart did anything to hurt _her_ , but if Harry's father so much as glared at the younger Kobrska girl... Harry feared that his friend might make his mother a widow.

 

So he moved quickly. And he didn't bother to style his hair, instead deciding to just let it air dry and hope for the best. He tossed his clothes on as well, but he actually took his time with them. He didn't want to look like he had slept in the clothes; his father wouldn't approve of such a thing. As soon as he looked somewhat put together, he fled the bathroom and raced downstairs. He didn't see any of his other housemates in the foyer or the sitting room, so he headed to the kitchen. And there they were.

 

Christopher Hart sat at his usual place at the head of the table, with a full plate of eggs and sausage and a steaming cup of tea. He was cutting the sausage while reading the newspaper, something he never did if there were other occupants at the table. Harry's seat was empty, as was the chair beside it. Sofia sat where Harry's mother usually sat, and Natalia was next to her, shakily nibbling on a piece of toast. Sofia had her own piece of toast in her right hand. In her left, she was twirling the butter knife around in her fingers. Both sisters had a glass of water, filled halfway.

 

The silence and the tension couldn't have been broken with Sofia's butter knife. Harry figured that he would need a steak knife, at the minimum, to break it.

 

Harry sat down in his usual chair and looked to Sofia. She blinked slowly at him, her green eyes bright and alert. So she knew what was going on, at least to some extent. Harry shouldn't have been surprised. Sofia was smart. She picked up on everything people did, whether they registered that they were doing it or not.

 

"Good morning, Harold." Christopher Hart said without looking up from the paper. Harry straightened his back. "Good morning, father."

 

Christopher nodded his head, but said nothing else. Harry didn't dare to ask for breakfast. He knew better than to test his father's patience. Christopher would allow Harry to eat whenever he thought that Harry had earned it. Harry didn't agree with the idea, but he wasn't in a position to argue. Christopher could easily get much worse if Harry tried to argue with him. Harry knew. He had tried, once. His parents had banned his from leaving the upper floor of their house for a month. Harry's food was delivered on a tray, once a day, and he was in charge of rationing it out over the twenty four hours. The perishables had always been first. Harry hadn't wanted his room to smell like rotten food.

 

Sofia lowered her toast and stabbed the wooden table with her fork. Loudly. Harry flinched. Christopher Hart looked up slowly, brown eyes flat and emotionless behind Kingsman issued glasses. Sofia met his glare with her chin held high. This was a girl who feared no man. "Mr. Hart, since Harry has finally arrived, I believe it's time for the three of us to go get breakfast. We'll be back by midnight, if that suits you."

 

"It does not suit me." Harry pulled his arms into his sides, shoving his hands under his thighs in an attempt to make himself as small as he possibly could. He didn't want a confrontation. He didn't want his father to punish Sofia for speaking out of turn.

 

Why couldn't she just keep her mouth shut, just one time?

 

"I don't really care. You haven't fed us, you show no intention of feeding us, so I'm going to do what I always do. I'm going to take matters into my own hands and I am going to be a proper parent." She stood up. Natalia stood with her, apparently knowing what was going to happen. She grabbed her older sister's hand and looked directly at Harry. Her stare was worse than Sofia's, really. For someone who didn't speak, she was quite terrifying. Sofia turned to Harry as well. "Come on, Harry. Let's get out of here."

 

"Harold, you are _forbidden_ from leaving this house." Christopher Hart was actually showing his anger. Harry slunk lower into his seat. He didn't know if he was trying to disappear or if he was coiling up, about to spring free. Sofia promised so much with that piercing green stare. Christopher Hart threatened just as much with his sharp voice. Harry wasn't sure which direction he was meant to go in.

 

Sofia turned to Christopher and narrowed her eyes. "Get lost, old man. Your kind is dying out anyway."

 

And then she and Natalia were moving. And then Harry was moving and ignoring his father's demand that he turned back around and returned to the kitchen table. His heart pounded in his chest but he had already made his decision. He would no longer be the scared little boy who hid himself behind perfectly fitted suits. He would still wear the suits, of course, but they would no longer be his shell. They would instead be his armour. And he would fight.

 

He didn't know what, exactly. But he would be fighting something. He kind of wanted to fight something right then. But he didn't, because the only people around him were Sofia and Natalia, and Harry knew better than to tease death like that. He still remembered what she had done to Van Haussen back in September. He knew that she was no less deadly now.

 

So fighting wasn't an option. Well. Harry shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket. "I want a cigarette."

 

"Want me to knick you one?" Sofia asked, still holding the hand of her sister. Harry shook his head. No, he wanted to walk into a store and get his own damn pack. He wanted to flick in a lighter with a cigarette already in his mouth and puff the smoke out into the cold air. He wanted to associate cigarettes with something other than the burns lining his arms. He wanted something real. Something his parents wouldn't approve of. Cigarettes would do for now. Harry would figure the rest of his rebellion out later.

 

Sofia nodded. "Alright then. Let's go to a store and get you some cigarettes."

 

They found a store, but the owner took one look at the three of them and laughed them out. The next store owner did the same. Harry punched a wall. Actually punched a real wall. Made of brick. And then Harry's knuckles were bleeding and his whole hand throbbed but he was smiling again. He suggested to Sofia that they head somewhere a bit less posh, where the stores won't care about selling cigarettes to people who are obviously minors.

 

He, Sofia, and Natalia get on the underground and head to the less expensive part of London. The whole time they're on the train, the well dressed man in the seat across from them keeps leering at Sofia. She stares back at him and eventually he winks and pulls out about two thousand pounds. Sofia mutters "stay here" in Russian to both Harry and Natalia, and then actually gets up and walks over to the man. Harry would be worried if he hadn't seen her slip a knife up her sleeve right before she stood.

 

She and the man exchanged some words, leading up to Sofia hitting his nose and taking the money from his hands before she stalked back over to Harry and Natalia. She glared at the man, who was clutching his bleeding, broken nose and swearing, and said to them. "We're getting off that the next stop. I don't feel like sharing a space with a man who wants to fuck children."

 

"He was trying to buy you for sex?" Harry wanted to break more than the man's nose. And he knew he could do it, too. Sofia shook her head. "No, he was asking me if two thousand would be enough to have Natalia for a day."

 

Natalia's eyes grew wide. Harry somehow got over to the man and slammed his bloody fist into the son of a bitch's eye socket. And then again. And again. And the man was fighting back, just as dirty as his sexual fantasies, but Harry was grinning through the blood and imagining what the man's neck would look like if it was split open.

 

* * *

  


Chapter 9

 

Harry Hart spent his Christmas vacation in a jail cell. His parents refused to release him and Sofia didn't have enough money to get him out. She did, however, manage to steal a leather jacket for Harry to give to Sven when they got back to school. She gave it to him when Harry was released on January 14th. There was also a pack of cigarettes tucked into one of the pockets. It was the day before they went back to school, and Sofia needed time to return Natalia to Russia.

 

Harry and his mother escorted Sofia and Natalia back to Russia. She seemed to realise that Harry and his father shouldn't be in a room alone. Harry appreciated the gesture, but he still spent most of the plane ride picking at the side of his new box of cigarettes. He wasn't allowed to smoke them on the plane, because apparently Natalia has asthma and the smoke made it hard for her to breath. Also, Harry wasn't feeling the urge to smoke as he had back in London with his father constantly on his back.

 

Sofia made Harry and Miranda Hart stay on the plane when they landed in Khatassy. Harry's mother looked a bit offended that a fifteen year old girl had forced her to stay back. After all, Miranda was a seasoned Kingsman agent, and the only female to ever be qualified for field work. She was a legend whether the other knights approved of it or not, and she wasn't used to hearing the word "no" come from anyone's mouth, apart from her husband's. She spent most of their time in Russia talking to Harry about respect and manners and how his generation was quite lacking in both. Harry resisted the urge to pull out a cigarette and puff smoke into her face. It wouldn't make her shut up. If anything, it would just make her more aggravated, because Harry's action would "prove" to her that Sofia and the other students at Outré Academy were corrupting the world.

 

Harry didn't care about corruption. Besides, from what he had seen of upperclass England, it could do with some corruption. So long as the corruption was what Harry's mother considered to be corruption, and not the incredible amount of adultery that went on amongst Harry's father and the other Kingsman agents. Harry couldn't think of a single man in that agency that had stayed loyal to his wife or girlfriend. Harry planned to be different. If he was with someone, he was with them. No exceptions and no excuses.

 

Harry knew that he was sulking. He knew _why_ he was sulking as well. He had brought Sofia and Natalia to England with promises of showing them what life was like without an asshole for a father, only to have his father turn around and act like an asshole for the whole of their winter break. Harry's father had essentially ruined Sofia and Natalia's Christmas, and while Harry hadn't helped by getting himself arrested for assault (the charges, however, had mysteriously been dropped the day before Harry was released), he wouldn't have felt the need to punch that man if his father hadn't been so fucking rude to everyone.

 

Outré Academy was surprisingly welcoming, though Harry felt a wave of nausea roll over him when he caught sight of the bunker. So many people had died there. So many had died at Harry and Sofia's hands, because Harry had thought himself capable enough to do such a thing. He had been successful, despite what he was feeling now, and he hated himself for not being strong. Sofia had killed people and she wasn't suffering from nightmares or anything else. Harry's parents had killed people, and they were fine. There was something wrong with him, then, since he couldn't deal with killing someone.

 

"Harry." Sofia grabbed his arm. She was looking him over the same way she had looked Natalia over when she had first gotten Natalia back from their father. She was worried about him. Harry forced a smile onto his face. "I'm fine, Sofia."

 

"I wasn't assuming that you weren't." She said slowly, and Harry knew she was lying. "But now, I am. Something is bothering you, and it's not just your father, is it?"

 

"You wouldn't understand it, Sofia. I'll be fine. I just need a little time." Harry said, taking her hand in his and giving it a soft squeeze. She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, and then nodded. "So it's nightmares, then, isn't it?"

 

"Excuse me?"

 

"The mercenaries that came into our school last year, the ones that we killed. You're having nightmares about what you did to them." Sofia said. "Harry, that's a normal reaction. I used to have nightmares about the girls I was told to kill. I used to be afraid of killing people, but I figured something out: as long as _you_ are the one in control of your choices, you will be alright. I killed those girls because I chose to do so, not because someone told me to. I killed them to protect myself and to protect Natalia. It was my choice, and I can live with it."

 

"I'm not afraid of killing people, I'm just afraid of them not staying dead." Harry said. _I dreamed that your father killed you and Sven and your sister._ He thought that but he didn't say it. Sofia didn't need to know about that part of Harry's dream.

 

"Just, if you ever need anything, you can come find me. Even though we are dating, we can still be friends." Sofia rubbed her thumb across the back of Harry's hand and then let go of it. She picked up her military style duffel bag and walked up the stairs. Harry grabbed his two bags and followed her up the stairs. He had Sven's leather jacket in a bag over his shoulder, and now that he was away from the scene of the massacre, he could feel excited again. He was looking forward to seeing his friend again, and hopefully he would no longer feel strange whenever he was around Sven.

 

There was an agent standing at the top of the stairs, dressed in a black cat suit and holding a basket full of keys in his hands. He watched Harry approach with cold brown eyes. "Name, please."

 

"Harry Hart." Harry said, drawing himself up to his full height. He had begun to shoot up in height again, gaining a full inch and a half over the break, and he planned to use the added height to his advantage. He was still lanky and his legs were still far too long for his body, but being back in training with Outré Academy would change that quickly. Harry couldn't see himself as ever having a lot of bulk, but he didn't want to be a gangly little prick for the rest of his life if he could help it. He also hated how loosely his suits fit him, even the bespoke ones that were meant to fit him correctly.

 

"You are in room two thousand thirty six now. Here is your key." The man dug into the basket and in only a few seconds, he pulled out a key with Harry's room number on it and handed it over to the boy. Harry thanked him and then headed towards his room. It was almost at the end of the hall, and he wondered why he had been assigned a new room. Sven and Raju had been perfectly acceptable roommates. Harry had thought that they at least tolerated him, even if they didn't consider him to be that good of a friend. Sven, Harry mused, definitely considered him as a friend, because he wouldn't have waited by Harry's bedside last year when Harry had been injured. Harry appreciated that Sven, and Sofia, had done that for him. It was nice to not be on his own.

 

Harry unlocked the door to his room and knocked once before he actually entered it. He didn't want to come across as rude to his new roommates.

 

"Harry? You're still my roommate, then?" Sven peered out from the closet, where he had been putting his clothes away. Harry's chest did that strange little twist thing it did every time he saw Sven, and he swore internally. _So the strange feelings were still persisting._ Harry smiled at Sven regardless, because Sven was his friend and Harry wasn't going to let these strange feelings in his chest keep him from being friends with Sven. "It seems so. When did you get in?"

 

"Only about..." Sven looked down at the second hand watch he always wore, then back at Harry. His eyes were very blue. "I actually don't know when I got in. But I've been here for at least an hour because three people have come by asking me if I would be going down to the welcome dinner that starts in about ten minutes."

 

"I didn't know that there was a welcome dinner." Harry said, and tossed his suitcases into his own closet. He would sort his clothes out later. He had a present to give to Sven first.

 

"Well, there is, and it's free food, so I'll most likely be going." Sven fell back on the bed with his arms splayed out like he was Jesus on a cross, about to be crucified. He turned his head to Harry and his soft blond hair fell away from his face. "You can join me, you know. But maybe lose the suit. It looks fine on you but no one else here can afford something like that, and... not to name anyone in particular... but there were a lot of people last semester who tried to get into your shit and steal it from you. You shouldn't flaunt your money here, Harry."

 

"I wasn't trying to." Harry said, but he started to take his suit off anyway. Sven didn't move. Harry tossed the jacket and then his trousers over into the closet as well, before starting to unbutton his shirt. He was halfway through it when he realised that he had no idea what else to wear. Everything he owned costed at least two hundred pounds. His parents were not cheap, and they didn't act like it either. The Hart family, and the Carter family to an extent, were very old money. Harry's mother's side, the Carters, had been hit harder during the Second World War because so many of their children had gone to war and had never come back, but Harry's mother had come into the family with a lot of good money to her name.

 

Harry pulled at the sleeve of his shirt. "Sven, do you have anything I could borrow? All of my clothes are far too nice."

 

"I can give you a shirt, probably, but I don't think any of my pants will be long enough." Sven said, and he tossed Harry a shirt and a pair of older, gray suspenders that were fraying a little at the ends. Harry took them gratefully and vegans changing into them as Sven returned to the bed and continued to talk. "All my pants are really fucking short on me, and you're taller than me right now, so I bet my pants would end up being shorts on you."

 

"I don't do shorts. I have chicken legs." Harry said, and retrieved the pants that he had been wearing earlier. Sven propped himself up on his elbows and tilted his head at Harry. "They don't look like chicken legs. They just look like people legs."

 

"It's a figure of speech, Sven." Harry sat down on his own bed and began pulling his pants back on. "It means I have really fucking skinny legs."

 

"I knew that." Sven rolled his eyes. He waited for Harry to finish getting dressed down, and then the two boys left their room and headed down to the dining hall. They were close enough that their shoulders were brushing, and Sven had shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked paler than before, which was hard to imagine as the boy had never been very dark. Harry nudged Sven's shoulder with his own. "Are you doing alright?"

 

"Yeah, it's just... my mother got worse over the winter." Sven said. He explained that his mother fell ill quite often, and that Sven and his eight siblings were all worried for her. Sven's father had been killed by some Germans a few years after the Second World War, his mother had remarried and had had three more children before her second husband ran off with a Chinese prostitute, leaving Sven's mother with nine children and no job. Sven and his siblings did what they could to make money, but Sven couldn't do much now that he was being shipped off to Outré Academy.

 

"I just hope that the agents were right and that this training will actually help me get somewhere in life." Sven said. He looked over at Harry, blue eyes as bright and vibrant as ever. "I want my brothers and sisters to not have to worry about going hungry, Harry. I wish they didn't have to."

 

"I wish you didn't have to worry about them." Harry said quietly, feeling quite guilty about his own life. Here was Sven, a boy forced to grow up before he could be a child, and all he cares about was keeping his family safe. Harry on the other hand was running around and fucking things up with everyone, just because his father hadn't allowed him a little freedom.

 

Sven nudged Harry's shoulder back. "Thanks. I know one day it'll all get better and my mom will be healthy and my siblings will be able to go to university and get a job and be happy, but it's just frustrating to wait for that to happen."

 

The two boys had finally made it to the grand hall. The door was opened for them and they walked through it together, looking around at how well decorated the place was. Sven let out a low whistle. "Maybe you should have kept the suit."

 

"I would rather be underdressed with you than appropriately dressed alone." Harry said, and he started to reach out for Sven's hand. He stopped himself before he did so though, because he was not supposed to hold hands with boys and besides, Sofia was somewhere in this room, and Harry was sure that she would be able to sense that Harry was holding Sven's hand in the door way. Harry also didn't want to scare Sven, or make Scen hate him just because Harry couldn't keep his feelings in check.

 

"I see Sofia over there, you want to join her?" Sven asked, and Harry nodded enthusiastically. It would be good for him to be around Sofia. It would remind him that he was supposed to like girls and that these weird feelings for Sven needed to go away. They needed to go away before Harry destroyed his friendship with the boy. Harry didn't have a lot of friends. He didn't was to lose the ones he had because he was considering holding a boy's hand.

 

Sofia barely even looked up when Harry sat down beside her and Sven sat down across from Harry. She didn't have a plate of food yet, even though all the people around her were already digging into the available foods. Harry moved closer to her and asked in his choppy Russian, " _Are you going to get something to eat?_ "

 

"I was waiting for you two before I got anything, actually." She said, and motioned for them to stand up. They did, Sofia leaving her bag at the table to mark that that was where they would be sitting when they returned from getting their food. The line was long, as Harry and Sven had arrived a few minutes late and they had taken some time to actually find Sofia once they had gotten to the great hall. The three were still getting food then the headmistress came up to the podium and tapped the microphone that was used to make school-wide announcements. At once, the hall fell silent and everyone stopped to look up at Headmistress Al'Dominique. She spoke with her hands on each side of the podium. "Ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, this very building was compromised last December. This is not the first time that Outré Academy has been put on the defensive, nor will it be the last. This is your oppurtunity to leave, if you do not think that you can manage your training here. If you leave now, you will face no repercussions and you will not have to worry about my agents ever again. Outré Academy is dangerous, being associated with Outré Academy is dangerous, and it is understandable if some of you would rather return home and pursue other options. For those that would rather stay here, we will be continuing training as before."

 

Sven had stopped watching the headmistress and was instead staring down at his feet with his eyebrows furrowed intensely. Harry and Sofia both watched him for a moment before Sofia said, "there's no shame in leaving, you know. If you need to be with your family, I think that Harry and I would both understand."

 

She looked up at Harry, her eyes daring him to disagree with her. Not that Harry was planning on it. He wasn't going to keep Sven from going home to his ailing mother and his many siblings, not if that was what Sven thought he should do.

 

"No, it's not that." Sven shook his head. "I do want to be able to see them more often, but when I'm away it means that there is one less mouth to try to feed. Everyone else has some more room to move around in at the apartment. I miss them, but I'm better here. If I do well enough, I can become a professional, and then I can afford to get my family a nice house, and I can pay for medicine for my mom."

 

"That's... that's very honourable of you." Harry regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. Not because he didn't mean them, but because the choice of diction made his intentions sound insincere. Harry didn't want Sven to think that Harry didn't care about him, because that would be a blatant lie.

 

Sven seemed to understand what Harry had really meant when he said what he said, because he gave Harry a small smile and actually looked back up at him and Sofia. "Thank you."

 

They finished getting their food and returned to the table they had saved earlier. They are mostly in silence, with occasional blurbs about what they were hoping to learn this semester. Sofia kept shooting knowing looks over at Harry, and during the course of the meal he began to become paranoid that she knew exactly what he felt about Sven, and that he wasn't shoving those feelings away as well as he thought that he was. Harry started to avoid looking at her. It was not the most mature thing to do, and it probably didn't help him because the only other person at the table to look at besides Sofia was Sven, and Sven was the cause of all this tension.

 

"So, Sven, did anything interesting happen to you over the break?" Sofia asked, blinking her sea green eyes in a way that was far too innocent. Harry didn't throw his fork at her, even though he very much wanted to. It would be too obvious of a giveaway for what he was feeling. Sven, luckily, didn't notice anything and just said, "not really. Why, did something happen with you and Harry?"

 

"Harry punched a man." Sofia said like she was his mother and punching that man had been Harry's crowning achievement. Harry wasn't even mad, because punching the man on the train had been the right thing to do. He had been a lewd, sick man, and he had deserved the broken nose that Harry had given him. Sven turned and looked at Harry for some kind of confirmation. "You, really? Harry, no offense but you don't seem the type to go around fighting people."

 

"Well, the prick deserved it." Harry said and took a sip from his drink. "I also got that jacket you asked for, it's in our room."

 

"Screw the jacket, I want to hear about you punching some guy. Tell me everything." Sven leaned forward, closer to both of them, with a bright grin on his face and his blue eyes wide and endearing. Harry and Sofia spent the rest of the dinner explaining all that had occurred over their break, occasionally adding in a few details that hadn't really happened but could have. Harry didn't say anything about how his father had burned him with a cigarette and purposely left him in jail for the whole break, because he didn't need to burden Sven or Sofia with his small little issues. They were irrelevant to the story and irrelevant in comparison to what Sven and Sofia dealt with nearly every day of their lives. Harry figured that they didn't need to know, and besides, he could handle his father just fine. There hardly wasn't even a problem.

  


* * *

  


Chapter 10

 

The semester flew by quickly, as Harry and his peers were all introduced to etiquette lessons and how not to look like an idiot in high society. Harry's team did particularly well, but that was because Harry already knew most of what they were expected to learn and so he could teach his team in a way that they understood better. It was Harry's first experience with leadership, and it fit him well, except for when he got frustrated with one of his teammates.

 

Harry, it turned out, had quite the aggressive streak in him. It also turned out that Sofia and Sven both picked up on this and decided to deal with it in whatever way they could. So Harry found himself getting dragged out of bed at five in the morning to practice with Sven some days, and on other days, Sofia would sneak him out of the school and they would go around town, practicing their skills on the various citisens of the Moroccan city that they were in.

 

As the semester came to a close, headmistress Al'Dominique announced that there would be an end of year gala for all four years, as was tradition. Their manners would be put to the test, as they would be expected to treat the gala as though it were an official gathering and not a glorified school dance. When one student asked where they would be getting their clothes from, Al'Dominique smiled and told them that the Outré Academy team had a few tailors on hand, and that those tailors would be going around and sizing people during the two weeks before the dance. She also said that dates were allowed as long as they were also Outré Academy students.

 

At that, Harry had felt his heart skip a beat, which was stupid because he already had a date, he just needed to ask her and make it official. He took a deep breath. This would be fine. Harry wouldn't look like a complete loser, off on the side of the ballroom with no one to talk to and no one wanting to dance with him for the entirety of the event. It had happened once before at the boarding school he had attended before Outré Academy. The girls from the sister school had come over for a dance, and Harry had spent the whole night leaned against the wall, his nose in a book. He had tried to ask a girl to dance, but she had wrinkled her nose at him and called him a freak before turning around to her group of friends as giggling obscenely at his expense. Harry knew when he had lost, and so he retreated to the corner with his book about taxidermy.

 

He had some strange interests, as Sofia often pointed out to him, but she had still agreed to be his girlfriend so he didn't count his interests as a bad thing anymore.

 

After the announcement, though, the school got a lot louder. Girls were talking about dress colours, boys about what kind of suit they wanted--if they knew anything about suits, that was--and both genders doing a sort of mating dance around each other. For Harry and Sofia, it was very interesting to watch. Harry had taken the stress off of his shoulders by asking Sofia to be his date the day after Al'Dominique made her announcement. Sofia had agreed and pulled him into a hug, a gesture that Harry took as a good sign, that he wasn't a complete arse when it came to being a boyfriend.

 

Sven, however, was very stressed. Apparently he was in the same situation that Harry had been two years ago, where he didn't know any girls well enough to feel comfortable asking them out. As the days slipped by, more and more girls were getting dates for the dance and Sven was becoming more and more nervous about the whole thing. This all escalated one evening when Sven came back to his and Harry's room and fell face-forward onto Harry's bed, letting out a muffled scream of frustration into the pillows. "Harry, I fucking hate you right now."

 

Harry patiently waited for Sven to explain why he had said that.

 

"You already have a date for this stupid dance, and so you don't have to stress about anything because you've already got someone who likes you." Sven said into the mattress, though Harry could still understand him and gave an awkward yet comforting pat to Sven's right shoulder blade. Sven turned his head sideways so that he could glare up at Harry with one clear blue eye. "You're going to make sure that I get a date to this thing, alright, otherwise I'm just going to cut off all your hair while you're asleep."

 

"Please don't." Harry said, and considered punching that same shoulder blade. "I quite like my hair the way it is."

 

"Then make sure I'm not dateless, Hart." And with that, Sven flipped over onto his stomach, his shirt twisting across his body so that Harry became aware of what exactly the past five months of physical training and puberty had started to do to his roommate. Harry pulled his legs up to his chest subconsciously and looked away from Sven. His face felt warm, and something twitched deep in his gut. This was weird. This was really fucking weird and Harry wasn't even sure if he liked it or if it was supposed to be happening to him. He had a girlfriend, and Sofia was pretty. She had soft blonde hair and green eyes that could probably kill a man, and she had curves and breasts and all the things that the other men in Harry's life looked for in a woman, but when Harry looked at Sofia, he didn't feel the way he felt then with Sven. He was probably just doing something wrong with Sofia. Harry hadn't yet kissed her, even though they had been together since December, and Harry figured that that needed to change.

 

He would kiss her at the dance, then, in a sweet romantic setting where she looked gorgeous in a dress and he was in a suit again. And Sven would be with some other girl and Harry wouldn't fucking care, even though the thought of kissing Sven sounded appealing then.

 

Harry shook his head rapidly. _No. No no no no no no. Do not think that._ He needed to get away from Sven for a while, and sort his head out. This was probably just his hormones being stupid. He probably just needed a good girl in the right situation and then he would be fine. That was what all the other men did when they got like this, they found a girl, they fucked her, and then they went back to their normal lives until it was better.

 

Except Harry couldn't imagine having sex with Sofia Kobrska. He just couldn't. Sofia didn't seem like the kind of person that Harry would fuck. Sofia was his friend, and he did like her, but he couldn't imagine having sex with her.

 

He could at least kiss her, he thought as he got off his bed and skirted around Sven, claiming that he had to take a piss or something. Really, Harry just needed to have a smoke and calm the fuck down. He had seen boys naked before, because the showers off of Outré Academy's gym were communal and teenage boys thought that it was funny to run around in a locker room with their dicks flopping everywhere. So Harry knew what other boys looked like naked. Hell, he had already seen _Sven_ naked, for Christ's sake, when Sven and Raju had decided to strip in front of Sofia just because she was comfortable with Harry doing so.

 

He closed the bathroom door, heard Sven call out that he was going to go look for a girl again, and then he let his head lean back and hit the shower wall.

 

Harry's pants felt tight, and he knew exactly what that meant. He was a loner and a bit of a weirdo, but he was still a teenage boy going through puberty. He had had boners before, but never because of an actual person. They were usually the result of dreams he couldn't remember, except that they involved his hands in blond hair and a mouth on his... Harry needed to deal with this problem now, and there was no way that a cigarette would help him. He was a little bit too turned on by his own thoughts for a cigarette to be of assistance.

 

So Harry got to work. It didn't take long, considering that he was fourteen and he was too horny and frustrated with himself to actually censor who he imagined pumping at his dick. They were at least blonde, which made him feel better later when he was standing under the cold shower water and trying not to shiver, his overgrown tresses of hair falling into his eyes. His clothes were in a pile by the sink. His mostly finished pack of cigarettes was in one of his Oxfords, the top open slightly.

 

Harry reached over and shut the water off. He shook his head, spraying little droplets of water everywhere, and stepped out, going straight for a towel and burying his face in it. He needed to pull himself together. This was ridiculous.

 

A good twenty minutes later, and Harry was dressed again, his shirt half unbuttoned and an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He flicked the lighter once, twice, and then finally it actually sparked so that Harry could light the damn thing. He did, and set the lighter on his nightstand before walking over and cracking the window open so that the room wouldn't get filled with smoke and then smell like smoke for days. Sven always complained about the smell when Harry smoked in their room and forgot to open the window.

 

Harry sat in the windowsill, blowing smoke and tapping his cigarette against the edge of the window whenever it was necessary to do so. He wasn't really thinking, just existing and watching the people in the courtyard below. They seemed to be playing a rather unconventional version of football, where punching and kicking an opponent was allowed. Harry noticed a few girls on the makeshift field (which was really two squares of concrete and a pair of nets at each end), but most of the females were gathered in clumps around the edges. Harry took a drag from his cigarette as one of the girls skidded across the concrete to kick the ball under a boy's foot and into the goal. She got up and Harry could see that her leg was bloodied and scraped up. One of the girls on the sideline tossed a towel at her and the soccer player dabbed her wound clean.

 

A new figure entered the arena. Sven. Harry smiled a little upon seeing him. He figured that Sven was about to make a move on one of the girls down there. "Come on, Sven, you can do this."

 

Sven chose the girl with wild red-brown curls and a broad nose that was splattered with freckles. He sat down beside her and the two of them started to talk. Harry didn't bother to try and figure out what they were saying. It was too far away for him to be able to read their lips. He took another drag from his cigarette, and breathed out, the smoke clouding calmly around his face. Sven was smiling. The girl was blushing. Sven took her hand and pressed his lips to her smooth knuckles. The girl ducked her head but Harry could still get a glimpse of her smile. Sven had been successful, then. Harry was proud of him. He tapped his cigarette on the window. "Good job Sven."

 

"You know he can't hear you from all the way up here, right?" Harry nearly fell out of the window in the process of turning around to see Sofia sitting on Harry's bed with her legs crossed and her hands tucked under her calves. She raised an eyebrow at him. "And why are you dressed like that? Did you forget how to wear a shirt?"

 

"I took a shower." Harry said, as if that was any kind of explanation. Sofia nodded anyway, because she was a good friend and she could understand what Harry was trying to say even though Harry hadn’t actually said it. Harry really did appreciate Sofia, even though he didn’t feel anything towards her romantically. Harry took another drag from the cigarette and then, cigarette still in his mouth and breathing smoke out from around the thing, Harry stood up and walked over to Sofia. He fixed his shirt as he walked over, so by the time he was seated beside Sofia his shirt was done up properly, with only the top button left untouched. Harry didn’t want to choke himself. Despite growing up in mostly suits, Harry hated the tight collars of his shirts. Now that he was free to dress as he pleased, he could loosen the damn things.

 

Sofia reached out and took the nearly finished cigarette from Harry’s mouth. She pinched it between her fingers, didn’t use it, and watched smoke curl up from the end as she spoke. “So they came by to fit my dress… I went with maroon. I don’t really like dressing up, but I thought that you’d probably look good in red, so I went with maroon.”

 

“You could’ve chosen any colour, though.” Harry took his cigarette back and ignored the small glare he received from her. It wasn’t as though he was smoking in front of Natalia. It wasn’t as though they were back in London and Natalia could walk into the room at any moment and start coughing all over the place.

 

“Yes, I know, but I hate dresses and I just wanted to get it over with.” Sofia was sulking. The great and powerful Sofia Kobrska, the girl who made bad jokes in every language she knew and acted like a mother hen when she wasn’t too busy scaring the shit out of everyone, was sulking. Because she had to wear a dress of all things. Harry found the situation amusing, and was laughing until Sofia punched him in the arm and took his cigarette back again. She twisted the butt of it completely off. Harry stared at her. “Sofia, what the fuck.”

 

“You shouldn’t find my discomfort amusing, _simpatichnyy mal'chik_.” Sofia said. She didn’t seem too angry with him. It just sounded like she was a mother or older sister correcting him on how to act. That was quite the role reversal from what Harry had grown used to over the past semester. While Harry was used to Sofia acting like a mother towards everyone, he wasn’t used to her reprimanding him. Harry generally knew his shit, and when he didn’t, Sofia was usually on his side in the first place. They just worked well together. This, however, was not one of their usual situations where they were both assholes together. This was different. So Harry ducked his head and apologised. “Sorry. You know, if dresses really make you uncomfortable, you could have just asked them to make you a pants suit. They probably would have done that for you.”

 

“Just because I don’t like dresses doesn’t mean I won’t wear one.” Sofia said. Harry looked up to see that she was smiling at him, the familiar glint of mischief back in her sea green eyes. She flicked her bangs away from her face. “One of the keys to espionage is being memorable but not sticking out.”

 

“You want the target to be fascinated by you as soon as they catch sight of you, but to forget you as soon as you’re out of sight.” Harry finished it for her, and then both of them were smiling. There was a silent agreement between the two that this dance wasn’t going to be just a test of manners, but their first real mission. They were graduating from sneaking into people’s homes at night and shifting all of their things a few inches to the left. Now, they were going to find a mark and… Harry blinked. “Are we going to be stealing something from the other students?”

 

“Yes.” Sofia’s smile grew larger. “I’m going to be collecting as many belts as I can. You’ll be collecting lipsticks from girls.”

 

“You gave me the easy task.” Harry laughed at her. “Girls don’t keep their purses on them while they’re dancing. They all leave them in a corner together. I’ll have no problem walking over and just taking what I want.”

 

“Harry, you have obviously never seen the inside of a woman’s purse.” Sofia laughed at him, and he shoved her (in a friendly matter, as he was not angry with her) away from him. She careened back, balancing solely on her ass, her curled up legs and her torso creating the perfect V shape, and then she was back in a sitting position, still laughing at him. A part of Harry decided to kiss her right then and there, when they were both enjoying themselves and alone. That way if he missed (as he feared he would), no one would know except Sofia. Harry figured that Sofia would forgive him for missing her mouth the first time, if he did. She would either forgive him or laugh at him for it, and Harry could live with either option. Harry knew that Sofia meant no injury to him when she laughed at his actions; it was just her way of showing affection.

 

So he leaned forward and somewhat face-planted into Sofia’s smiling mouth. She made a noise of surprise before taking Harry’s jaw in her hand and rearranging them so that their noses weren’t defying the laws of physics and trying to take up the same space at the same time. Harry wasn’t sure what he was doing, and Sofia wasn’t either, from what Harry could tell. Her lips were kind of chapped and they tasted like grape jelly.

 

The kiss was over very quickly, and maybe that was why Harry hadn’t felt anything at all. It had just felt like mashing his face against something warm. He didn’t dare tell Sofia that, lest he offend her, and so he smiled and ruffled his hair up again. “Well… that was something.”

 

Sofia rolled her eyes. “No shit, Hart. You need to work on your technique. I like my nose on my face, thank you.”

 

* * *

  


Chapter 11

 

The ball was loud, with music blasting from the speakers and teenagers yelling at each other. Harry tightened his grip on Sofia’s arm and she patted his hand. He leaned over and whisper-yelled in her ear, “I remember why I hated school dances now!”

 

“I’m starting to think it was a good thing that my father sent me to an all girls school!” Sofia yelled back at him, loud enough that Sven and his date--a girl named Hathai--turned and stared at them. Sofia didn’t care enough to quiet down. “We never had dances there! We just fought each other to the death!”

 

“...I honestly cannot tell if you’re being serious.” Harry said, deadpan. Sofia either didn't hear him or was choosing to ignore him, because she didn't respond and instead the two of them continued down the stairs onto the dance floor. Sven and Hathai were already dancing. Her curls had been fluffed into an Afro and she was wearing a pale lavender dress that shimmered in the lights. She looked very nice, and Harry felt a twinge of anger (jealousy? Surely not) as Sven moved her across the dance floor. Harry quickly turned away and extended his hand towards Sofia, putting on a smile when she gave his hand the eyebrow raise. Harry laughed. "Would you like this dance?"

 

He had to scream it, so it didn't quite sound like the loving words from a romantic film, but it was better than nothing. Sofia took Harry's hand, and he pulled her in close, placing his other hand on her waist. This, he knew how to do. His mother had taught him how to dance, using herself as a partner. Harry found it a little disconcerting to have such a small partner, as his mother had only been a few inches shorter than him when she had taught him to dance. Sofia barely reached his chest.

 

She was doing quite well though, even though she had stepped on his toes once. Harry could forgive her for that. She was still new to dresses and heels and looking regal. Harry figured that she had been pulled from her all girl school before they had gotten around to teaching the girls how to blend in with high society. Harry knew that Sofia's school wasn't just some Russian private school for girls. He wasn't sure exactly who was in charge of it, but he figured it was just the primary school version of Outré Academy. How else would Sofia be so cruel and cold-hearted when it came to killing people? That didn't happen by accident. Such a mindset had to be learned.

 

The two of them danced for most of the night, taking breaks whenever one or both of them became too tired to carry on. They talked with Sven and Hathai sometimes, though Harry had a hard time talking to Hathai without having an ugly ball or rage coil up in the depths of his stomach. They also saw their other teammates and said hello. A few upperclassmen came by, one of the boys asking Sofia if she wanted to dance. Sofia glanced over at Harry to make sure he wouldn't mind, and Harry nodded her off. If Sofia wished to dance with someone else, then Harry would let her. She was her own person. He didn't control what she did.

 

Harry had expected to sit that dance out, since he didn't have a partner and he was pretty sure that no one else would want to dance with him, but then another girl in a bright pink dress came up and stood by him. Patiently. As though she were waiting for him to say something. Harry realised that she wanted to dance with him, and asked her. With a blinding smile she agreed, and yanked him out to the dance floor where she eagerly pressed her breasts against his chest and curled her fingers into the hair on the back of his neck. Harry placed a hand on her waist and wondered how rude it would be if he just never made eye contact with her.

 

She spent the next seven minutes (because of course it had to be a longer song) trying to grind her hips into Harry's, while simultaneously shoving her breasts so far up that Harry feared they would pop out of her dress. She was also trying to kiss him, so Harry spent the dance with his head leaned back and his eyes focused on the top of her head.

 

Finally, though, the song came to an end and Harry was able to remove himself from the girl's grip. Harry breathed a sigh of relief as soon as her breasts were no longer on him, but he should have known better because the next thing he knew, she was grabbing his arm and pulling him in roughly. She didn't even bother to kiss him proper before her tongue was in his mouth and her hands were at his waistband, crawling under to try and untuck his shirt. Harry shoved her back, causing the girl to topple over and hit the floor. No one else really noticed, because they were all too tied up in their current partner.

 

And then Harry fled. Screw stealing make up and finding Sofia and romancing her at a school dance. Harry couldn't do this. His mouth still tasted like the girl, and he hated it. He needed something to get the God awful taste out. His hands were shaking slightly as he reached into the inside of his jacket to pull out his pack of cigarettes. _Two in a day_ Harry thought to himself. _But this one is only because of her. The first one was the only one I meant to have. This is an exception._ He didn't smoke regularly, but sometimes he would just light up a cigarette to take the edge off of everything. He no longer had nightmares about last semester, and the cigarette burns from his father had scarred over nicely. They now just blended in with the others on his arms and back.

 

Harry stood out in the balcony with his suit jacket hung over the railing and his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He blew smoke into the night air and rubbed at his mouth again. He could still feel her lipstick on him, even though he has rubbed his mouth so harshly that it stung and his lips felt really dry. He just couldn't get rid of her fast enough, or thoroughly enough.

 

There was a soft knock from the door to the balcony, and Harry glanced over his shoulder to see Sofia standing there. Harry hung his head. "Sofia, I'm sorry."

 

"I heard what happened, Harry." She said as she walked over, her heels clicking unevenly across the concrete floor. She came over and put her hand on his shoulder, rubbing it slowly. Her way of comforting him. "That wasn't your fault. She assaulted you, and you did the right thing by pushing her away."

 

"I feel disgusting." Harry said, staring at the faint red light at the end of his cigarette. Sofia sighed. "That's understandable. Do you want me or one of the other girls to deal with her? Because I could, if it would make you feel any better."

 

"I doubt it." Harry said. He looked up from his cigarette, at Sofia. She didn't look angry with him. Her green eyes were warm and welcoming, and Harry wondered how the hell he wasn't in love with her yet. He was in love with her, but only platonically. She didn't make his heart skip a beat, she wasn't who he thought about at night or in the shower, but she was his best friend and he loved her. He loved how she was willing to do anything to ensure the safety of the people closest to her. He loved that she was witty and smart and picked up on accents and languages faster than Harry could figure out what language he even wanted to know. He loved how she could communicate so much without even opening her mouth. He loved how efficient she was at everything she did. He didn't understand why he didn't love her in any other way besides friendly. He hoped that one day someone would love her the way she deserved to be loved.

 

"You're smoking more." Sofia noted, and she was right. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Are you having the nightmares again? Do you want to talk about it?"

 

"It's nothing, I'm just not sure how my parents are going to react to Sven. They weren't exactly warm towards you..." Harr and Sven had decided to spend the last few weeks of summer vacation at Harry's house, because Harry's parents had a summer home in Spain and Sven had never been to a real beach before. Harry planned on resolving that issue. He just hoped that his parents would allow it. If they didn't, Harry wasn't sure what he and Sven would do. Something illegal, most likely. Harry had a tendency to show off in front of his friends. Sven was one of his friends.

 

"They'll like him." Sofia said. She reached down and removed her heels. "And if they don't, I'll just kill them."

 

"Sofia, no." Harry rolled his eyes. Sofia looked up at him, her bangs covering her eyes. She looked so small like that, but Harry knew that she wasn't small. Not really. She was dangerous and powerful and so important to him. Harry put his cigarette out and knelt down beside her, taking her face in his hands. "You can't go around killing people just because they're rude."

 

"No, but if someone hurts a person I care about, then I have to do whatever is necessary to keep it from happening again. And if that means killing, then I'll kill someone. It doesn't bother me, Harry. It really doesn't." Harry believed her. And so he kissed her, because somewhere in his fourteen year old brain he thought that was what he was supposed to do. Except even though this kiss was delivered correctly, he still didn't feel anything. There was no spark, no light going off in his mind. It was just the press of flesh to flesh.

 

Sofia broke away first, and stood up to her full height. She looked Harry up and down, and after a moment she started laughing at him. Harry glared at her. "What the fuck is so funny?"

 

"You in your perfect suit with the shirt completely untucked and your hair all curly and your sleeves rolled up." Sofia said in between laughs. "You have no idea how many people in this school find you attractive, do you?"

 

"I'm really not that attractive, Sofia." Harry said. He meant it. It wasn't as though he looked in the mirror every morning and thought "wow I'm an ugly piece of shit," but he just looked like the average teenage boy. He was halfway through puberty, his body was too long and his hair was too fluffy. In a few years he figured that he would look nice, but right now he was an unfortunate mix of boy and man. He grabbed his jacket from the railing. "Do you want to go back in, or are you done for the night?"

 

"I'm done." She said. Then she paused, like an idea was forming in her mind at that moment and she wasn't sure what to do with it yet. Before she could even say anything, Harry was shaking his head. “No. Sofia, whatever you’re considering, I’m not going back in there. I’m done, I’m going up to my room, and I’m taking a shower to get her grimy taste off of me.”

 

“Did she really taste that bad?” Sofia looked like she was about to burst out laughing. Harry schooled his face so that he looked completely serious, even though he was pretty sure that none of this conversation was meant to be taken seriously. He stared down at Sofia. "She tasted like every desperate girl who has thrown themselves into my arms, hoping for a gentleman instead of a boy to sweep them off their feet."

 

"Yes, because you're _such_ a gentleman." Sofia extended her hand to Harry, who took it, and the two of them left the balcony. Harry remembered to grab his suit jacket on his way out, and then they were off to Harry's dorm room, where they would probably just lounge about until Sven and possibly Hathai showed up.

 

Sven arrived sans Hathai an hour later. He looked tired out and barely registered Harry and Sofia as he went straight to his bed and fell onto it. Harry and Sofia exchanged looks, each one wondering who of the two of them would ask the obvious question. Sofia gave in first and leaned around Harry so that she could see Sven better. "How'd it go?"

 

"I was not made to dance with girls." Sven said. He lifted his head from the bed and turned to look at Harry and Sofia. "At some point I lost my belt, and she immediately assumed that I had been with another girl, so then I spent two hours trying to track her down before I just gave up and came up here."

 

"The party's still going?" Sofia asked as Harry turned to her and asked her if she had stolen Sven's belt. Sofia glared at Harry as Sven looked between the two of them, utterly confused. Sofia reached up under her dress and messed around for a few seconds before pulling out a large bulk of belts. Sven's confused look only grew in size. Harry crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for Sofia to unhook all the belts and return Sven's back to him. She finally did, tossing the black leather across the room to Sven, who caught it with ease. Sofia turned to Harry. "I got sixteen, seventeen if you let me count Sven's belt. What about you?"

 

"Twenty three." Harry said, and reached into the pockets of his suit. He pulled out the twenty three tubes of lipstick and laid them out next to Sofia's belts. "The incident with that girl caused a lot of chaos and confusion, and gave me a chance to go through quite a few purses."

 

"You son of a bitch." Sofia said, but she was grinning anyway.

 

"Did you two really turn a school dance into a competition of who could steal the most shit from random people?" Sven asked. He still hasn't put his belt on. Harry figured that Sven saw it as unnecessary. Harry understood that. Sven's belt had also been up Sofia's dress, thought Harry had no idea how Sofia had fit seventeen belts up her dress or where she had put them, and he wasn't sure if he actually wanted to know about that.

 

Sofia was nodding eagerly in response to Sven's question. "Yes. And I'm sorry for stealing your belt, but I wanted to win."

 

"That's fine." Sven said. "Hathai was nice and all, but she seemed to think that we were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend after the dance, and I wasn't sure how to tell her I wasn't interested without seeming like an asshole."

 

"Losing your belt to another girl is definitely one way to go about it." Harry said, and Sven threw his jacket at Harry in response. Sven pretended to snap the belt at Harry as well. "Fuck off."

 

"Boys, please." Sofia rolled her eyes at them both, a mischievous smile on her face that frightened Harry. "Save your flirting until I've left the room."

 

"This isn't flirting." (Sven)

 

"We're not flirting, Sofia." (Harry)

 

"Okay, sure. This is what boys do all the time." (Sofia)

 

Harry and Sven promptly tossed every pillow they could reach towards Sofia, who laughed and swatted them away effortlessly before picking them up again and throwing them back at Harry and Sven. That started an all out pillow fight where Sven and Harry were trying to take Sofia down, and Sofia was kicking their asses all on her own. Just because Harry had won their previous competition didn't mean that he was going to win this. Of the three of them, Sofia was the superior fighter, though usually Harry and Sven had no problem taking her in a fight. Sofia always concerned herself with not killing her opponents, so much so that if she had multiple opponents she would get overwhelmed trying to keep her movements non-lethal.

 

They eventually all tired out and Sofia declared a draw after Harry landed a hit directly to her face. They decided that, instead of sending Sofia back to her room, where her roommate would inevitably want to gush about how wonderful and romantic her night was (which was something Sofia didn't do; she didn't gush about anything as far as Harry knew), she could just spend the night with Harry and Sven. There was a short argument over where everyone would be sleeping, before Harry just asked Sofia if she would be okay sharing a bed with him, and she said that she was fine with it.

 

Sofia also took a shower and stole some of Sven's clothes (all of Harry's were "too nice" for her tastes) to sleep in, and Harry and Sven changed out of their suits and into their pajamas. Sofia came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later with her hair damp and curling up at the ends, dressed in a white t-shirt and a pair of loose pants that barely hung on her waist. She was not wearing a bra. Harry didn't find that very arousing. It just seemed practical that she wasn't wearing a bra to bed. Sofia climbed in and pulled the sheets up to her chin, turning away from Harry and towards the door. "Goodnight Harry, Sven."

 

"Goodnight." The two boys chorused back to her, and then Harry turned the light off and the three of them were all bathed in darkness. Harry let out a sigh and closed his eyes, ready to sleep. It had been one hell of a day, and he was ready to move the fuck on and leave school.

 

* * *

  


Chapter 12

 

"Holy shit you have a nice house." That was the first thing out of Sven's mouth when Harry's mother answered the door on the morning of August first. The next words out of his mouth were "oh, you're not Harry... I'm sorry for swearing at you I was just surprised by your house. It's really big, by the way. I'm Sven. I go to school with Harry."

 

"I am aware. You may come in." Miranda Hart said to Sven as Harry came the rest of the way down the stairs. He had been reading up in his room and hadn't realised that Sven was there, otherwise he wouldn't have let his mother answer the door.it wasn't that he thought that his mother would be a bitch to Sven, but Harry would have preferred to act as a buffer between the two of them. Harry's mother and Sven came from two very different worlds.

 

The door closed behind Sven and both Sven and Miranda Hart turned their attention to Harry. Harry nodded to Sven. "You're early."

 

"Yeah, the train was faster than I thought it was going to be." Sven said. He looked down at his two bags full of his clothes and everything else he would need for the year, and then up at Harry through his bangs. "Um... do you want to show me to my room?"

 

"Yes." Harry said. "Mother, Sven is staying in my room, correct?"

 

"He is. Remember, my sister is coming to visit for your birthday, so do your best not to make a mess before she arrives." Miranda gave Harry a stern look from behind her Kingsman issue glasses, and then turned away. She had somewhere to go. Some mission to complete, and she didn't have any time to tell her son and his friend where she was going. Harry was used to that. His mother had to be very cold and cruel to everyone so that the other Kingsman agents wouldn't look down on her as much. They still looked down on her, because she was a woman and more importantly a working mother (which was seen as a lower class thing to be), but Harry's mother did everything she could to prove to the other agents that she was just as valuable as they were.

 

Harry wondered, as he took Sven up to his room, if Miranda was like that because her sister was not. Harry's Aunt Peggy was in charge of her chosen agency, and she had gotten there not by trying to be one of the men, but by doing what was right no matter what her superiours (or her fellow SSR agents) thought of her. Aunt Peggy never tried to impress anyone. She knew her worth, and she knew that she was worth five make agents. She knew who she was and she knew what she intended to be. She never cared to ask for anyone else's opinion, because she never needed it.

 

Harry opened the door to his room, which he had straightened up so that Sven wouldn't be startled by anything. Harry Hart was not a slob in any way--his room was incredibly neat--but he often kept his hobbies and his activities out on display. While Sven knew about the butterfly experiment because of Sofia, Harry figured that he wouldn't want to see that Harry was still using the corpses of previous butterflies to study them. They had been pinned and were currently in one of his desk drawers.

 

"I'm assuming that I'm going to be on the second twin bed?" Sven pointed to the bed in question, which Harry had never used before now. His parents had given him two beds so that he could have a friend stay over if he ever wanted to. Of course, Harry had never made any friends before Sofia and Sven, so the bed had sat up against the wall gathering dust for ten years. Now, though, now it was going to be used.

 

"Yes, that's yours." Harry nodded. Sven shoved one of his suitcases under the bed, and then set the other one on top of it. Sven began to unpack while Harry watched and wondered whether he was supposed to be helping his friend. Sven seemed to know what he was doing, but still. Harry was supposed to be polite and a gentleman. Harry ruffled his hair and sat up straight. “Did you want any help with that?”

 

“No, I know what I’m doing.” Sven paused and looked over his shoulder, and Harry’s heart stopped functioning for a moment. Fuck. Sven was smiling at him. “Do you?”

 

“Do I what?”

 

“Know what we’re going to be doing. Not everyone loves to stay inside and fuck around with bugs, Harry. Some of us like going outside.” Sven’s smile was only growing, and Harry glared at him. Cheeky little shit. And yet Harry put up with him anyway. Harry dropped his glare and sighed. “I shouldn’t let you and Sofia talk when I’m not there to chaperone. And yes, I do have some ideas of what we can do, but none of them are good until it gets dark outside, so figure out something to do while we wait.”

 

“You’re a shit host.” Sven said.

 

“Well, you’re a shit guest.” Harry retorted back at him, because he couldn’t think of anything better to say. His mind felt disconnected. He couldn’t concentrate, and it was frustrating him. How the hell could he lose control of his own mind? How the hell did that even happen to people? Harry wasn’t sure if he was angry or nervous or what he was, but he decided that he didn’t like it. He didn’t like being out of control of his emotions. Harry wanted to be in control.

 

That feeling followed him around for the whole day, as Sven had decided that Harry needed to show him around London during the daytime, no matter what Harry’s plans were for the night. Sven was bored, apparently, because Harry’s house was too quiet and Sven wasn’t used to the quiet. Harry’s mother had left the two boys alone because she had been called into work (she lied to Sven and said that she was just a secretary, and Harry had told Sven the truth as soon as his mother was out of the door). Harry’s father was supposed to get back the same day that Harry’s aunt came to London. Harry was more excited for his aunt than his father, which made him feel like a shitty person. His father wasn’t even that bad.

 

He and Sven finally snuck out that night and headed to the area of London that was known for drugs and being very, very punk. Harry knew absolutely nothing about punk music except that his parents hated it and that everyone who listened to it looked really badass and usually had a fuckton of tattoos all over their body. Harry was considering getting one himself, but he wanted someone to be with him when he did it just because the experience would probably be better if shared. That, and perhaps both he and his friend (in this case Sven) would end up with matching tattoos.

 

They got to the less posh area of London at about midnight, and meandered around looking for a tattoo parlour that didn't seem incredibly sketchy. Unfortunately that kind of tattoo parlour didn't exist, and so Harry and Sven crept into a place called the Blackbird Tattoo Parlour and walked up to the receptionist. Harry had no idea what their gender was because they had a very masculine face but they were also wearing a pastel purple wig that went far past their shoulders, as well as a cheap dress that looked like a flapper costume. The person was smoking a cigarette and raised one heavily edited eyebrow at the pair of teenage boys. "You two babies lookin' to get arted up are you?"

 

"Yes... ma'am?" Harry asked. While he had never seen a man in a dress, this person sounded like a man and had the face of a man but the demeanour of a woman. Harry just hoped that he wasn't offending them.

 

"Damn time someone in here showed me some respect!" The person--a woman apparently--visibly lit up and turned her head around to the rest of the parlour. "Bonesey, did you hear this darling boy? He’s callin’ me a _lady_. Nobody up here ever calls me a lady.”

 

“That’s ‘cause youse a whore, not a lady, shite.”  Another voice, Harry assumed that it was Bonesey, yelled back. The lady gave Bonesey a two-fingered salute, and then turned back to Harry and Sven with a smile on her face. Her make up was well done, if a little excessive. She was doing a good job of hiding her masculine features, considering that her products were probably not very expensive. The lady blew smoke in their faces. "Don't pay any mind to Bonesey, he's just pissed that he had to take the night shift again. He hates the night shift, all the drunk boys come in and bother us. Bonesey has no time for their shite."

 

Harry nodded. "That sounds... unfortunate."

 

"It is. Now how about you boys grab a catalogue and figure out what you're lookin' for while Bonesey and Charcoal finish up their customers." The woman handed a pair of ratty catalogues to Sven and Harry. The catalogues were covered in various powders and stains, and they were almost falling apart. Sven looked at Harry as they walked over to the black sofa wedged in the corner behind the door. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

 

"It's too late to back out now..." Harry said, because honestly this was much more interesting than anything else he had planned for the next two weeks. He also thought that tattoos were interesting and he knew that this was the only way to get one. His parents would never allow him to mark his body and Sofia had already said that she didn't like them and didn't want any of her own. Sven had no problem with them, and had been willing to go along with Harry's idea.

 

"Alright." Sven shrugged. "But if I get some disease or something then I am blaming you for it."

 

"I'll accept that." Harry said. One of the tattoo artists came over and asked them if they were ready to get started. Harry looked at Sven, knowing that he wouldn't leave his friend until his friend was ready to make a decision, and Sven gave him a nod. Harry turned back to the tattoo artist, and said that he and Sven were ready. The artist gave them a smile and told Harry that Bonesey would be doing him as soon as he was done with his current client. Sven went off with the artist.

 

About two hours later, Harry and Sven had one small tattoo each and Harry was handing over enough money to pay for them both. Harry's tattoo was of a sword, and it ran down his right side. Sven had apparently opted to get the line art for a small bird on his shoulder blade, and would get the rest of it later because apparently detailed tattoos came in parts. Now that Harry's side felt like hell, he could understand why. Tattoos hurt.

 

As soon as they were out of the parlour, Sven turned to Harry with the biggest shit eating grin on his face. "I honestly didn't take you seriously when you said you wanted to go out and do rebellious shit.”

 

“Why not? We get in trouble for breaking the rules at school all the time.”

 

“That’s school.” Sven shrugged. “This is real life.”

 

That made sense to Harry, so he let it go and he and Sven walked back home together. Everyone else in the Hart house was already asleep when the two boys returned, so they didn’t have to deal with a lashing from Harry’s father for being out all night without any good reason. They both stripped down to their underwear and then back up into their nightclothes before crawling into bed. Harry turned over onto his back and turned the lights off. He was asleep within minutes, and he could only hope that Sven had done the same. Harry was surprisingly bad at keeping people entertained throughout an entire night.

 

He awoke the next morning to the sound of someone knocking loudly on his door. Sven was still in bed, with only tufts of blonde hair visible above the duvet. Harry groaned and got out of bed, throwing his own duvet back in annoyance that someone had interrupted his sleep. Barefoot, he padded over and opened up his door, squinting blearily at his mother in the doorway. She looked unimpressed with him, her lips drawn into a thin line. “Harry, your aunt Peggy is going to be here any minute. What are you doing still in your night clothes?”

 

“Sorry, mother. I’ll go get changed.” Harry said, closing the door before she could say anything else.

 


End file.
